> ## 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.

# Studies overview

> AI-moderated surveys and interviews with real participants

A **study** is Versive's core research unit: a set of questions that participants complete through a shareable link, an embed in your product, or a recruited panel. Depending on how you configure it, a study can feel like a traditional survey, a conversational AI-moderated interview, or a full voice/video interview.

## Interview engines

Every study runs on one of three engines, selected in **Settings → General**:

| Engine                 | What it does                                                         | Credits                   |
| ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------- |
| **Regular AI**         | AI-moderated interview: participants answer, the AI asks follow-ups  | 1 per completion          |
| **Realtime AI** (Beta) | Real-time conversational interview, including voice-to-voice mode    | 2 per completion          |
| **Survey**             | Classic survey with no AI questions — structured question types only | Discounted survey credits |

## Conversation modes

The conversation mode controls how participants respond:

| Mode                   | Description                                                                                     |
| ---------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Text only**          | Text-based chat interface                                                                       |
| **Text and voice**     | Hybrid — participants can type or speak (default)                                               |
| **Voice with preview** | Participants speak, then review and edit the transcription before submitting                    |
| **Video**              | Records participant video alongside the interview                                               |
| **Voice to voice**     | Realtime engine only — a spoken conversation with the AI, with a configurable silence threshold |

## Ways to create a study

* **AI study assistant** — describe your research goals in natural language and the assistant generates the full study: questions, settings, and logic. Keep chatting to refine it — add, reorder, or rewrite questions, change settings, and update logic rules, with structured change tracking. You can also import a Figma prototype and get auto-suggested questions.
* **Manual creation** — build question by question with the drag-and-drop builder and the question library.
* **Templates** — start from pre-built or organization-specific [study templates](/platform/templates).

## Study status

New studies are live by default — they accept participants as soon as you share the link. You can **pause** a study (visitors are sent to your custom pause URL if one is set) and **archive** it when the research is done. A study also pauses automatically when it reaches its response [quota](/studies/settings#sharing--participants).

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Question types" icon="list-check" href="/studies/question-types">
    All 20+ question types and their settings.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Study settings" icon="adjustments-horizontal" href="/studies/settings">
    Every setting, tab by tab.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Logic & branching" icon="arrows-split-2" href="/studies/logic">
    Conditional paths, screen-outs, and AI-evaluated rules.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Launch & share" icon="rocket" href="/studies/launch-and-sharing">
    Links, email outreach, embeds, and AI simulation.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>