Focus groups generate some of the richest, messiest audio in qualitative research. Six to twelve people talking, sometimes over each other, sometimes in a room with bad acoustics, sometimes over a Zoom call with someone's dog barking in the background. Getting that audio into a clean, usable transcript is where a lot of research budgets and timelines quietly get tested. Not every transcription service handles this well, and the right one often depends on the kind of focus group you're actually running.

I stumbled on a YouTube conversation that stopped me in my tracks. Stine Grodal, a distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Northeastern University, and Henri Schildt, Professor at Aalto University School of Business, sat down for a refreshingly honest discussion about AI and what it really means for qualitative research. No buzzwords, no panic, just two scholars thinking out loud about a question researchers everywhere are grappling with: what does this actually mean for my work?

Over the past few years, AI transcription has become a routine part of qualitative research. Researchers upload interview recordings, receive transcripts within minutes, and move directly to analysis. The time savings are real. For teams managing dozens of interviews across multiple languages, AI transcription for research interviews can significantly reduce turnaround without compromising the depth of the analytical work that follows.