> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getversive.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# The AI interviewer

> Configure how Versive's AI moderator conducts your interviews

The AI interviewer is the conversational moderator that runs your study: it asks your questions, listens, probes with follow-ups, and keeps the conversation on track. Everything about its behavior is configurable in **Settings → AI Interviewer**.

<Callout icon="info-circle" color="#71717a">
  The AI Interviewer tab is hidden for studies using the **Survey** engine, since surveys don't have conversational questions.
</Callout>

## Interviewer mode

| Mode                  | Behavior                                                                       |
| --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Quality** (default) | Smarter, more natural follow-up questions — best results for depth interviews. |
| **Fast**              | Quicker and more scripted — good for short studies where speed matters.        |

## Personality & guidelines

* **Description** (up to 900 characters) — the interviewer's persona: tone, role, and style. For example, a warm UX researcher, or a neutral market-research moderator.
* **Guidelines** (up to 3,000 characters) — behavioral rules for the whole interview. When set, your guidelines replace Versive's defaults, so include everything you care about (probing style, what to avoid, how to handle off-topic answers).

## Question rephrasing

By default the AI may **rephrase the next question** so it flows naturally from the conversation ("You mentioned onboarding was confusing — walk me through what happened when…"). You can:

* Turn rephrasing off entirely if exact wording matters (e.g. standardized instruments).
* Add **rephrasing instructions** (up to 300 characters) to constrain how questions may be reworded.

## Follow-ups

Follow-up behavior is configured per question — see the [AI Question settings](/studies/question-types#ai-question) for follow-up limits, instructions, and duration targets.

## Transcription keywords

Under **Advanced → Keywords**, add domain-specific terms — company names, product names, industry jargon — to improve voice transcription accuracy.

## Voice settings

For realtime voice-to-voice studies, tune the **silence threshold** (0.5–5 seconds, default 1.5) that controls how long the AI waits after the participant stops speaking before responding.