Why Discovery Should Be Voice-First in AI Projects

Every successful AI project begins with discovery. Discovery is where teams align on priorities, uncover hidden challenges, and clarify opportunities.

Traditionally, discovery relies on forms, surveys, and stakeholder interviews. These methods work, but they often miss depth.

When onboarding a $20M+ ARR business for an AI education project, a voice agent built on ElevenLabs replaced the standard form. The impact was immediate:

• More than five hours saved

• Richer and more authentic context

• A clearer view of the client’s challenges before kickoff

This showed us something important. The future of discovery should be voice-first.

The Limits of Forms

Forms are efficient for collecting structured data. But they rarely capture detail. Stakeholders type quick answers. The deeper insights stay unspoken.

Interviews bring more nuance but require heavy coordination. Scheduling, running multiple conversations, and synthesizing notes take time. By the time insights are gathered, momentum slows.

Why Voice-First Works

Voice-first discovery combines the structure of a survey with the richness of a conversation.

1. Natural Expression
   People speak more freely than they type. They share details, context, and stories that forms never capture.

2. Scalable Efficiency
   Voice agents can run discovery with multiple stakeholders at once. Each participant gets a personalized experience, and teams save hours.

3. Deeper Context
   Tone, pacing, and phrasing reveal priorities and frustrations that text cannot.

4. Consistency
   A trained voice agent asks the same questions every time. It is structured enough for data, but flexible enough for nuance.

How It Worked in Practice

The voice agent used for the AI education project included:

• Questions from the standard discovery form

• Prompts normally asked during stakeholder interviews

Stakeholders answered asynchronously, in their own time, as if in a conversation. The result was:

• Richer detail, with anecdotes and workflows described in full

• Broader participation, since scheduling was no longer a barrier

• Faster synthesis, with transcripts and audio ready for analysis

By the time the project started, the client’s AI maturity, pain points, and priorities were clear.

Why This Matters

Strong discovery creates strong projects. Voice-first flips the dynamic from “fill out this form” to “let’s talk.”

The approach applies beyond AI:

• Creators can use voice surveys to hear directly from their communities

• Companies can capture richer product feedback with less friction

Closing Thought

Discovery sets the tone for every project. Voice-first methods save time, capture nuance, and create more accurate roadmaps.

If surveys feel shallow, try replacing them with conversations. The depth you gain is the difference between guessing and knowing.