Podcast Summary: Insights Unlocked

Episode Title: Powering smarter research: what the UserTesting acquisition of User Interviews signals for UX research
Date: January 26, 2026
Host: Kate Towsey (Guest Host, ResearchOps Leader), with Nathan Isaacs (Producer)
Guests: Baran Urkel (Chief Strategy Officer, UserTesting), Basil Fakhoury (Co-founder & CEO, User Interviews)
Length: ~45 minutes

Episode Overview

This episode explores the recent acquisition of User Interviews by UserTesting—a landmark event in UX research and customer insights. The discussion centers on the strategic vision behind the merger, its implications for researchers, participants, and the broader community, and the future direction of customer-first research operations, including the integration of AI and the preservation of beloved tools and user communities.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Now? The Strategic Rationale for the Acquisition

• Alignment in Mission and Timing:
  • Basil Fakhoury (User Interviews) shares that UserTesting and User Interviews have developed a strong alignment in customer focus and vision over the past year.

    "There was just a ton of alignment with our mission and UserTesting's mission and their plans going forward felt so customer centric and tied with what we were trying to do." (Basil, 02:31)

• Industry Context:
  • The research industry is rapidly evolving, especially as AI becomes more prevalent. The partnership aims to empower researchers and drive sustainable investment in tooling and participant recruitment.

2. Vision for the Combined Platforms

• Scaling Insights and Research Accessibility:
  • The goal is to combine User Interviews' industry-leading participant panel with UserTesting's powerful feedback and analytics platform.

    "The vision is really to make it easier for customers to recruit the people they're looking for and to get high quality feedback...and ultimately leverage AI to make that more efficient." (Baran, 04:01)

• Signals a Commitment to Research:
  • The acquisition, backed by investment firm Thoma Bravo, is seen as proof of long-term confidence in the UX research sector.

    "This is a real testament that hey, user research is here to stay and it's going to grow...Understanding your customers and getting close to your customers is incredibly important." (Basil, 06:30)

3. Community Concerns: Openness, Independence, and Integration

• Not a Subsumption, But a Partnership:
  • User Interviews will remain directly available, including standalone contracts and integration with other tools—flexibility, openness, and researcher-first values will be maintained.

    "Our job, number one is to not screw that up. We certainly don't want to subsume something that is working perfectly and change it." (Baran, 08:17)

• Investment in Community and Resources:
  • Both UserTesting and User Interviews commit to investing in education, community events, and research courses/resources.

4. Impact on Participants and the Panel Experience

• Protecting Participant Experience:
  • Both companies prioritize the well-being and opportunities for panel participants, balancing flexible payments and engagement models.

    "Participants need to be happy. They've got lots of choices...we want them to continue with us and so hopefully this will be a better opportunity for them if we do our jobs right." (Baran, 13:10)

• Gradual, Thoughtful Integration of Panels:
  • While the end goal is a unified panel to accelerate innovation and provide higher quality recruitment, this will be approached with care.

    "It's not like you just pour both of them in one bucket...there's a lot of nuance and tech and data...It'll be very nuanced, but it makes sense to put them together." (Basil, 15:17)

5. The Future of Key Products Like Research Hub

• Continued and Increased Investment:
  • Research Hub, User Interviews' CRM for research participant management, will continue to be supported and improved, benefiting from UserTesting's larger organizational relationships and scale.

    "There's a lot of excitement about Research Hub within UserTesting. If anything, even more than the panel I think there will be a renewed and increased investment." (Basil, 16:46)

6. Supporting Researchers—From Teams of One to Enterprise

• Support for All Team Sizes:
  • User Interviews' pay-as-you-go and easy onboarding remain, supporting small teams, solo practitioners, and large enterprises alike.

    "We don't plan to change [the small team focus]...So we see it as a great on ramp and if they want to scale with us further, that's fine." (Baran, 33:05)

• Empathy for Procurement Processes:
  • Bundled offerings (UserTesting + User Interviews) will simplify procurement for orgs—addressing a pain point for many.

7. Openness and Integrations with Competing Products

• Maintaining Third-Party Integrations:
  • Existing integrations with competitors and other platforms will be maintained; future focus will be on enhancing the UserTesting + User Interviews integration.

    "We will support the existing integrations." (Baran, 22:42)

8. AI, Innovation, and Roadmap

• Upcoming Features and Enhancements:
  • Embedded Figma experience—run studies, recruit, analyze—all within Figma.

    "The user testing experience will be fully embedded in the Figma designer application..." (Baran, 35:13)

  • Enhanced survey tools, tree testing, card sorting, and AI-driven natural language test creation for unparalleled speed and scale.
  • Continued focus on modernizing live conversations, scheduling, and interaction analysis.

9. Long-Term Message and Industry Impact

• Signal of Growth and Value:
  • The acquisition is positioned as positive market validation—user research is valuable, not at risk of extinction.

    "It's showing that some of the best investors in the world have a strong belief that user research will...grow, and it's worth investing in because of that growth going forward." (Basil, 24:00)

• Empowering Researchers to "Work On" the Business:
  • Researchers are encouraged to reconceptualize their roles as orchestrators of insight, not just report builders—a new era where technology enables greater impact at scale.

    "For researchers it's thinking about going from working in the product organization to on the product organization..." (Baran, 27:30)

10. Lessons Learned from Past Mergers

• Humility and Customer-Centricity:
  • Previous M&As have highlighted the importance of listening, learning from both organizations, and prioritizing customer and participant experience over everything.

    "Humility, I would say, is something... we've learned over and over. Listening and learning as much as talking." (Baran, 28:36)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the future:

  "This is an opportunity, the change driven by technology in the industry, for researchers to rethink their role and up level their role...More insights are required, not less." (Baran, 26:36)

• On openness:

  "We believe in customer choice...they'll be able to do that with User Interviews and the tool of their choice." (Baran, 10:44)

• On success:

  "Did we keep the great talent that has now joined UserTesting?...Did we deliver the innovation, the experience...Are we really making [customers] happy and...seeing the LinkedIn and Reddit posts that are like, 'Wow, these guys delivered.'" (Baran, 39:21)

• On community engagement:

  "We want to hear from customers, we want to hear from the community...hold us to the promises you've made on this call...maybe we get you to come back in a year and we do a retrospective and...look at the report card and see how we did." (Baran, 42:12)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:07] – Why now? Strategic considerations and timing of the acquisition
• [04:01] – Vision for scaling and integrating customer insights
• [07:07] – Addressing community concerns: partnership vs. absorption
• [11:31] – The participant experience and blending panels
• [16:46] – The future of Research Hub and product support
• [18:16] – Immediate impacts for users and researchers
• [22:42] – Maintaining integrations with third-party tools
• [24:00] – The future of research as a profession
• [26:36] – Researchers’ evolving role as orchestration agents
• [28:36] – Lessons learned from M&A and the value of humility
• [33:05] – Serving small research teams and the pay-as-you-go philosophy
• [35:13] – UserTesting’s 2026 innovation roadmap (Figma, AI, surveys)
• [38:20] – What success looks like for the merger and the community
• [42:12] – Invitation for ongoing community feedback and transparency

Final Thoughts & Contact

The episode concludes with an open invitation for community members to reach out with questions, feedback, and suggestions—UserTesting leadership encourages public accountability and plans a future retrospective to assess their progress.

• Contact emails:
  • Baran Urkel: burkel@usertesting.com
  • Basil Fakhoury: bfakhoury@usertesting.com

Tone and Language

The conversation is candid, encouraging, and transparent, with a forward-looking optimism tempered by acknowledgment of community concerns. The speakers’ language emphasizes partnership, openness, and humility, aiming to build trust and excitement about the future for researchers, participants, and the broader UX ecosystem.

For more details, episode notes, and curated clips, visit:
usertesting.com/podcast