Researchers build a tool to show exactly what an AI did when analyzing interviews and essays

A new open-source Chrome extension called QualAnalyzer lets researchers see every step an AI takes when analyzing qualitative data — the exact prompt sent, the data fed in, and the conclusion reached. This means researchers can now audit AI-assisted analysis the way they would audit human work, spotting where the AI diverged from human judgment or made systematic mistakes.

Qualitative research — analyzing interviews, essays, open-ended survey responses — is increasingly done with AI, but most tools hide how they actually work. You feed in data, get out conclusions, and have no way to know if the AI missed something or got confused. QualAnalyzer breaks that black box open by keeping a transparent record of every decision. This matters because it's the difference between using AI as a rubber stamp and actually using it as a tool you can verify. Right now, if an AI system starts misreading interview data in subtle, systematic ways, nobody would know until the damage was done. With auditability built in, researchers can catch those failures before publishing.