# AI study planning

Canonical page: https://www.questionpunk.com/support/study-plan

Let AI design a complete research plan — audience, methodology, sample size, and survey outline — from a single description.

Time: 2-10 minutes

Level: Beginner

Audience: Researchers, Product teams, Students

## Steps

### 1. Start a new survey

From the dashboard, click **Create** and describe your research goal. By default (**one-shot**), your description is enough — the AI plans and builds the survey directly with sensible defaults, without pausing for review.

### 2. Opt in to a guided conversation instead

To pause on a reviewable plan before anything is built, toggle **Plan this with me first** before generating on Home, or click **Not sure where to start?** in the empty chat editor. Either one switches to **Guided** mode, where the AI asks focused questions one at a time about your goal, audience, modality, sourcing, and languages.

### 3. Review the study plan

In Guided mode, the AI generates a study plan card showing: research goal, collection format (standard, AI interview, or hybrid), question count with type breakdown, estimated duration, target audience and participant count, and a step-by-step survey outline. For Prolific studies, cost estimates are included.

### 4. Approve, adjust, or skip

Click **Approve** to convert the plan into a configured survey. Click **Adjust** to refine specific parts. Or click **Skip Planning** to jump straight into the editor.

## Details

The study planner bridges the gap between a research idea and a ready-to-launch survey. It handles methodology decisions, question type selection, and sample size estimation so you can focus on your research goals.

By default, describing your goal plans and builds the survey in one shot, with no pause for review. To review a plan first — and approve, adjust, or skip it — opt in to **Guided** mode with **Plan this with me first** on Home (or **Not sure where to start?** in the chat editor), which asks a few clarifying questions before generating the plan.

Three collection formats are supported: **Standard** (fixed questions with optional AI probes), **AI Interview** (single conversational interview), and **Hybrid** (fixed questions plus an AI interview section).

The plan includes a question outline showing each proposed question with its type (multiple choice, AI interview, screener, etc.), making it easy to review the survey structure before building.

For studies using Prolific, the planner estimates participant costs based on duration and sample size.

## Related articles

- [Create your first survey](https://www.questionpunk.com/support/create-your-first-survey.md)
- [Generate a survey with AI](https://www.questionpunk.com/support/ai-generate-survey.md)
- [Synthetic testing with AI personas](https://www.questionpunk.com/support/synthetic-testing.md)