Optimal gives you two ways to use AI to ask questions about your research and explore your findings in more depth: AI Chat in Interviews and Optimal MCP.
Both let you ask questions in natural language, but they’re designed for different types of research exploration.
The quick answer
Use AI Chat to go deeper into your interview data and highlight reels.
Use MCP to explore individual studies, connect research from different studies, connect to other tools, automate existing or new workflows
Use AI Chat when you want to… | Use MCP when you want to… |
Explore a specific interview topic | Search across multiple studies |
Find participant quotes and examples | Compare findings across studies |
Find new video clips | Identify recurring themes and trends |
Generate new highlight reels | Combine research from different methods |
Understand participant reactions | Connect Optimal research to an AI assistant or AI tools |
Find supporting evidence from interviews, with citations that lead back to timestamped evidence | Explore individual studies using participant results, study setup and metadata, transcripts, task results, user paths, and other insights and analysis |
Note that you can also find participant quotes and examples with MCP.
What is AI Chat?
AI Chat is built into Optimal Interviews and helps you explore your interview data using natural questions. Use it to explore what participants said, find specific examples, and dig deeper into topics or insights.
Try asking:
“What frustrations did participants mention about checkout?”
“Show me quotes about trust in the product.”
“What did participants find confusing about onboarding?”
You can ask follow-up questions to refine your search and explore a finding in more detail. AI Chat can also surface quotes and highlight reels to help you find supporting evidence. Learn more about AI Chat.
What is Optimal MCP?
Optimal MCP connects your Optimal research to an MCP-compatible AI assistant, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Cursor.
Use it when you want to analyze a particular study or search, compare and synthesize research across your Workspace rather than focus on a single set of interview data.
Try asking:
“What usability issues have appeared across our research this year?”
“Compare our findings from March and June.”
“What themes are recurring across our recent studies?”
“Create a Notion page outline summarizing these insights.”
MCP can help you explore study data, participant results, structured survey results and AI-generated insights across your accessible research. Learn more about Optimal MCP.
Which one should I use?
Explore Interviews in depth → AI Chat
Use AI Chat when your question is focused on what participants said in interviews and you want to investigate the session in more detail.
Go broader → MCP
Use MCP when your question spans individual or multiple studies, research methods or time periods, or when you want to bring your Optimal research into another AI workflow. MCP can also help you pull together different types of study data and analysis, or automate research workflows.
Examples
You want to understand problems with onboarding.
AI Chat:
“What did participants say was confusing about onboarding? Show me examples.”
MCP:
“What onboarding issues have appeared across our research over the past six months?”
Best practices
Whichever you use:
Ask specific questions. Include the product, feature, audience, study or timeframe where relevant.
Start broad, then dig deeper. Use follow-up questions to explore interesting findings.
Ask for evidence. Request quotes, examples, citations or the studies supporting a finding.
Specify the format. Ask for a summary, presentation-ready bullets, or another format that suits your needs. With MCP, you further specify formats, such as charts, tables, or interactive deliverables.
Check important findings. Use AI to accelerate analysis, but review the underlying research before making important decisions.
What data can you access?
AI Chat focuses on your Interviews data, helping you explore interview responses and supporting evidence, such as quotes and highlight reels.
MCP provides read-only access to research data available to you in Optimal, including study information, participant results, supported survey results, transcripts, and AI insights.