I just wrapped up a chapter from my upcoming book on the use of AI in academic research. This chapter focuses on AI-powered data collection methods, exploring various approaches and the tools that support each. In discussing survey tools, I covered how AI can enhance the design and execution of surveys, and I wanted to share some insights from that discussion here.
In this post, I’m sharing a selection of AI-powered tools to help you create surveys, questionnaires, and polls. While my book examines these tools within an academic research context, they are equally useful for educators looking to design class surveys or formative assessments.
I argue that Google Forms remains one of the best free options for creating simple surveys and forms, especially in education. It’s easy to use and now includes AI-powered features through Gemini.
However, for those in need of more advanced survey generators, I recommend exploring the options below. These are some of the best in the market—most offer free basic plans with limited features, while premium plans unlock more robust functionalities.
Before we explore these AI-powered survey tools, let’s talk about the principles of effective survey design. The quality of your survey hinges on the clarity and structure of your questions. Hence the importance of learning how to craft effective questions. Below is a brief summary of best practices for crafting strong survey questions, adapted from my book.
Survey Design Tips
Drawing from Creswell (2009) and Pew Research, effective surveys require clear, unbiased, and well-structured questions to ensure reliable data. Here are key best practices:
Things to do
- Keep questions clear and precise – Avoid ambiguity or complex wording.
- Use neutral language – Prevent bias in phrasing.
- Balance question types – Combine open- and closed-ended questions for depth and structure.
- Ensure consistency – Use the same wording for tracking trends.
- Limit response options – Four to five choices work best.
- Pilot test before launch – Refine based on feedback.
- Be mindful of question order – Placement affects responses.
Things to Avoid
- Ambiguous or double-barreled questions – Ensure clarity and focus.
- Too many or too few response options – Keep it balanced.
- Leading or biased wording – Maintain objectivity.
- Overuse of yes/no questions – Scale-based responses provide richer insights.
- Skipping pretesting – Always test for clarity and effectiveness.
AI Survey Creation Tools
Now that we have an idea about how to frame our questions to ensure clarity, neutrality, and reliability, let’s explore some AI-powered tools that can help streamline the survey creation process.
1. AI Chatbots
I like to think of AI chatbots as the Swiss Army knives of AI—versatile tools that can assist with many aspects of research. I’m mainly referring to ChatGPT and Claude, which I use almost daily, but the same applies to Gemini and Copilot. These AI-powered assistants can be incredibly helpful when designing surveys.
For starters, you can provide an AI chatbot with context about your research or survey topic, along with details like your target audience and key areas you want to cover. In return, it can generate relevant questions tailored to your needs. You can also draft survey questions yourself and ask the chatbot for feedback—requesting it to refine wording, remove bias, or make the language more inclusive and neutral.
Want to take it a step further? Share examples of well-designed surveys and ask the chatbot to explain what makes them effective. This can serve as a guide when crafting your own. Keep in mind that working with AI is an iterative process—you’ll likely need to go back and forth, refining and adjusting until you get the best results.
AI chatbots aren’t just useful for generating questions; they can also help analyze survey responses. Once you’ve collected data, tools like ChatGPT and Claude can assist in identifying trends, summarizing key findings, and even visualizing data with charts and diagrams.
That said, privacy is a major concern when using AI tools. Before uploading any data, make sure you’re not sharing sensitive or identifiable information. Always check the tool’s privacy policy—understand what guardrails it offers, what data it stores, who controls it, and whether your data is used for model training.
Fortunately, both ChatGPT and Claude provide an option to opt out of model training. For Claude, this is the default (at least for the premium Sonnet version), while for ChatGPT, you’ll need to adjust it in the settings.
2. SurveyMonkey
This is one of the leading survey creators online. It has been around way before the advent of GenAI but now that it has integrated AI into its ecosystem, the functionalities it offers are even more powerful.
SurveyMonkey allows you to generate surveys in seconds using concise prompts and not only that it also suggests best question types and optimizes answer choices for better data accuracy.
SurveyMonkey can also help edit your survey by evaluating its structure and suggesting improvements. Low-quality responses can be filtered with a single click. Additionally, SurveyMonkey offers over 400 pre-designed survey templates to help you create your perfect survey.
Other interesting features offered by SurveyMonkey include: the ability to generate scannable codes for quick survey access, feedback sharing, control access to surveys and results, combine data from multiple surveys for analysis, generates custom reports and visualizations, multiple export options (e.g., CSV, XLS, PDF, or SPSS ), integrations with various platforms (e.g., Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, Zoom), and many more.
As for its pricing, SurveyMonkey offers a free Basic plan with limited features. If you need advanced AI tools, analytics, and customization, you’ll need to upgrade: Individual Plans ($39/month), Team Plans ($30/month per user), and Enterprise Plans (custom pricing).
3. Fillout AI
Fllout is another powerful platform powered by AI that enables you to create surveys, questionnaires, and polls. Simply add your input and Fillout automatically generates complete surveys with the ability to import questions from other places (e.g., Google Forms and Typeform). You can customize the design of your survey the way you want. You can even upload images to add a special touch to your surveys.
Fillout offers sophisticated editing features that allows you to refine your survey questions and remove bias and improve the overall clarity of the survey. Its drag and drop editor makes it easy to modify surveys, add various types of questions, and even transform your entire survey into interactive quiz or poll.
Fillout offers different sharing options, you can generate links for easy sharing, embed your surveys into your website or blog, distribute it across social media platforms, and more.
Fillout offers four plans: The free plan is for individuals who need basic forms, Starter ($19/month), Pro ($49/month), Business(89/month).
4. Jotform AI Survey Generator
I’ve been using Jotform on and off for several years, mostly for creating forms and questionnaires. What I love about it is its intuitive interface and how easy it is to use. Recently, Jotform has integrated AI into its functionality, making form and survey creation even more seamless. You can simply type a prompt, upload a file (PDF, DOCX, TXT, etc.), or scan a document, and AI will generate the survey for you.
With the Form Builder, you can easily tweak AI-generated questions, customize fonts and colors, and drag and drop new elements as needed. Jotform’s survey maker supports various question types, including multiple-choice, single-choice, yes/no, and open-ended questions.
Other interesting features include the ability to convert surveys into quizzes and exams, access to over 2,000 pre-built survey templates, AI-powered suggestions for unbiased and effective question wording, and integrations with third-party tools to streamline data collection.
As for pricing, Jotform offers five plans. The free Starter plan comes with limited features, while the Bronze plan costs $34 per month, the Silver plan is $39 per month, and the Gold plan is $99 per month. There’s also an Enterprise plan with custom pricing.
5. Typeform
Typeform is another good AI-powered survey generator to use to create your own surveys and questionnaires. Like previous tools, Typeform to instantly generate forms based on a short prompt.You can adjust the AI generated questions or even import your questions from other platforms like Google Forms.
One of the key strengths of Typeform is its analytics. Typeform summarizes findings from your surveys and helps you identify key trends. You can also chat with AI to further interpret your data, detect sentiments in open-ended responses, clarify vague responses and more.
With a single prompt you can convert responses to easy to read visuals and reports. You can also share your surveys via web links, social media, email, among others.
As for its pricing, Typeform offers various plans: Free plan (basic features), Basic plan ($25/month), Plus ($50/month), Business ($83/month), and Enterprise (custom plan).
6. Forms.app
This is a tool that I have recently started experimenting with and found it really worth the shout-out here. Forms.app offers an AI-powered editor that allows you to instantly create prompt-based surveys. And like the other survey generators, the tool also suggests AI improvements to your questions, suggests answer choices, and provides multiple variations to your questions.
You can either build your survey from scratch or use one of the pre-built templates. You can customize the design the way you want as well. Forms.app also offers an AI quiz maker which makes it easy to generate quizzes with automated questions and answers. The tool also supports integrations with other platforms such as Slack and Google Sheets.
Pricing: Free plan (limited features), Basic ($25/month), Pro ($35/month), Premium ($99/month)
Other AI-powered Survey Tools
In addition to the options I’ve covered, there are several other AI-powered survey makers worth exploring if you’re looking for more choices. Tools like Qualtrics, Zonka Feedback, Formstack, SurveySparrow, and QuestionPro offer a range of features, from advanced analytics to seamless integrations with other platforms. Each comes with its own strengths, whether it’s automation, customization, or AI-driven insights, so it’s worth checking them out to see which best fits your needs.
Final thoughts
Creating surveys does not have to be a complex process. AI has made it way easier than any time before to create engaging and highly interactive surveys, questionnaires, and polls for various purposes. In this post which is adapted from my upcoming book on the use of AI in academic research, I discussed various AI-powered tools to help you create surveys. I started with AI chatbots and then moved on to more survey-specific alternatives. Regardless of the AI tool you choose, you should always be prudent with AI generated content! Always edit and double check output, and make sure you, the human being, are always in the loop.
References
- Creswell,J. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
approaches.Thousand Oaks, California:Sage Publications. - Pew Research Center.(n.d.). Writing Survey Questions. Retrived from https://www.pewresearch.org/writing-survey-questions/
