AI startup Conveo raises $5.3m to revolutionize market research with AI-powered video interviews

Consumer behavior is evolving faster than ever, driven by AI, the Creator Economy, and the rise of Gen Z and Alpha. At the same time, shifting regulations and cultural changes are forcing brands to rethink how they engage with customers.

Yet, most brands still rely on research methods that can't keep up. Traditional qualitative research is slow, costly, and often leads to companies not doing any research at all. This leaves companies making decisions with incomplete knowledge, leading to missed opportunities and expensive mistakes.

That's where Conveo comes in. Already trusted by industry leaders like Procter & Gamble, Google, Unilever, and others, Conveo’s multimodal AI video interviewer enables companies to conduct hundreds of in-depth customer interviews overnight, in any language, and at a fraction of the cost. By automating the entire research process - from project set-up to AI-driven interviewing and instant analysis - Conveo delivers real-time insights 100x faster than conventional methods, often spotting connections humans would overlook.

At his previous scaleup, Conveo CEO and Co-founder Dieter De Mesmaeker, saw how businesses made high-stakes decisions with insufficient research - leading to costly mistakes and missed opportunities. Meanwhile, at McKinsey, Co-founder Hendrik Van Hove experienced firsthand how traditional research was slow, manual, and expensive, making it difficult to gather insights at scale.

"I've seen the value of great research at McKinsey doing hundreds of interviews and countless surveys myself. But with the scheduling, note taking, and long nights analyzing, it was extremely painful to do. That’s why companies don’t do nearly enough research. We've all seen it. Companies losing billions making the wrong investments or missing out on great opportunities," said Hendrik. 

Seeing how AI could finally bring change, they teamed up to build the Qualtrics of qualitative research.

"We can’t imagine anyone doing it the old way 2 years from now. And our customers agree. 90% of the time in qualitative research is spent on activities that can be automated so researchers can spend time on actually creating value from these insights. As AI capabilities rapidly progress, we see Conveo becoming an AI research ‘employee’ within organizations. With perfect recall, Conveo can instantly surface previous research, integrate third-party data, or launch new research in real time. Organizations will face far fewer barriers to gathering insights, driving better decisions, products, and services," said Dieter De Mesmaeker.

The research efforts at Conveo are led by Niels Schillewaert, Founder of the global insights agency Human8 and Professor of Marketing at the Vlerick Business School.

"Our product’s strength comes from our team. We combine decades-long research and strategic experience with deep technical expertise. Most of our competitors are only strong in one of the two areas whereas both are critical," said Dieter De Mesmaeker"

Conveo's AI behaves like a human researcher, having personal conversations, while following a topic guide, and asking deeper questions based on responses. More than 50% of valuable insights come from AI-driven follow-ups.

From the start, the team knew Conveo’s success would hinge on whether people would embrace an AI interviewer. This is also a common question from brands. The data speaks for itself: 83% of respondents report feeling more open when sharing with an AI than with a human interviewer, and 93% of users rate Conveo's AI interviews 4 out of 5 or higher. Brands that initially hesitated have been surprised by how well their customers engage, providing richer and more honest feedback.

"Of course, we were skeptical about how our customers would react to AI interviews. But after thorough testing, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive," said Wendy Francois, Market Researcher at Orange.

With this funding, Conveo is expanding its team across engineering and business development, with a focus on further scaling in the U.S. and Europe. In addition to hiring top talent, Conveo will further build out its AI coworker to deliver more value to its customers. This is only the beginning.

www.conveo.ai