Introduction to QInsights

QInsights is an AI-powered platform for qualitative data analysis. It is built for researchers, evaluators, consultants, and insight teams who work with unstructured data such as interview transcripts, focus groups, open-ended survey responses, reports, audio, and video files.

Human judgment stays in control

QInsights was built on a simple idea: AI can support qualitative analysis, but it should not replace the researcher's judgment. Good analysis requires interpretation, reflection, and methodological care. QInsights is not a one-click solution that produces polished answers without showing how they were reached - it is an interactive analysis environment where AI supports you in exploring patterns, asking focused questions, comparing perspectives, and developing insights that stay linked to the underlying data.

You remain in control at every step: defining the focus, reviewing responses, checking references, refining questions, and deciding how to interpret the results.

Transparency by design

A central principle of QInsights is transparency. Insights generated in the platform are grounded in the uploaded material and linked back to the original data segments used to support them. This lets you inspect, validate, and challenge the output rather than simply accept it - a form of human-AI collaboration that combines the speed and pattern-recognition of AI with the contextual understanding and responsibility of the researcher.

What you can do in QInsights

• Upload and organize interviews, focus groups, reports, audio, video, and survey data
• Add metadata (respondent or document characteristics) to support filtering and comparison
• Explore themes, analyze conversations in depth, and compare responses across cases
• Follow up on emerging findings through dialogue with Q, your AI assistant

Whether you're working on academic research, evaluation studies, market research, or organizational learning, QInsights provides a structured environment for turning unstructured data into defensible insights.

Supported formats at a glance

See Supported File Types for format-specific guidance, including how to prepare transcripts and Excel files so QInsights can analyze them accurately.

Language support

QInsights recognizes the language of your source text automatically and works with most commonly used languages supported by the underlying AI model.

• Unprompted analyses (Summary, Theme Analysis) are generated in the language of the source document - a Spanish document produces Spanish themes, an English document produces an English summary, and so on.
• Prompted analyses (Conversational Analysis and similar) respond in the language of your prompt. If your source text is in English but you ask a question in German, QInsights answers in German while still analyzing the English material.
• If an answer comes back in the wrong language, simply ask a follow-up such as "Please write the answer in German."

Use the project description to give Q context about your project, data, and research focus - not for unrelated instructions like personal reminders, which can confuse later summaries. See Creating a Project for details.

How this documentation is organized

• Getting Started - security basics, the Anonymizer tool, creating a project, uploading files, and configuring data context and filters
• Supported File Types - format-specific preparation guidance for audio, video, Word, PDF, Excel, and transcripts
• Analysis - how each of the five analysis modes works: Theme, Conversational, Guided Conversational, Grid, and Sentiment Analysis
• Analysis Archive - reviewing, organizing, and continuing past analyses
• Working with Q - prompting strategies and analytic question templates for getting the most out of your AI assistant
• Account & Team - settings, billing, and collaborating with teammates

Next: read about data security and privacy, or jump straight to creating your first project.