For the launch of Today’s SurveyMonkey, our CEO, Eric Johnson, sat down with journalist and On New Terms Media founder Caroline Fairchild to explore one question: as AI becomes more central to how we work, what happens to the humans on the other side of our decisions?
Here’s what stood out to us from the conversation – watch the full session below.
- The gap between knowing and doing is costing companies more than they realize.
SurveyMonkey research found that 83% of small business owners say customer feedback is useful, yet only 54% collect it more than once or twice a year. Belief isn’t the barrier, it’s time and process. Companies that never collect feedback are four times more likely to say their decisions don’t reflect what customers actually want. Most of them sense something is off, they just haven’t connected it to a lack of feedback.
- AI makes it easy to feel right about something you haven’t actually checked.
False confidence is a growing problem. AI is trained on what’s already happened; it’s not good at telling you what your specific customer is thinking right now. The companies missing aren’t moving too fast, they’re moving fast without checking.
- When leaders stop asking people, it ripples through the whole organization.
Another SurveyMonkey study found that 95% of workers call themselves curious, but only 30% feel their workplace actually rewards it. And the more senior someone is, the more likely they are to ask AI instead of a real person. When the signal disappears at the top, everyone below starts optimizing around assumptions.
- The companies that get it right have made listening a part of how they work.
Not a pre-launch exercise or an annual survey, but an always-on system. When Noom developed a new wellness feature, they gathered feedback from nearly 20,000 people before launch. Their product manager put it simply: research isn’t a detour. Done early, it’s one of the fastest ways to reduce risk and build confidence.
The data keeps pointing to the same conclusion: humans still matter. Listen to them. Explore Today’s SurveyMonkey.
Watch the session in full below.
