How to get survey responses for free using AI (step-by-step guide)

Getting people to respond to your survey can be one of the most frustrating parts of research. Whether you’re a student working on a thesis, a business running customer satisfaction surveys, or a researcher conducting empirical research, collecting enough quality responses often feels like an uphill battle.

Traditionally, the options are limited: you can post your survey link in Facebook groups, buy access to survey platforms, or bug friends and colleagues to fill it out. But each comes with drawbacks: money, time, random audience that doesn’t really match your target audience or even losing friends because you spend more time asking them to fill out your survey than asking them how they are doing (true story).

Fortunately, there’s a new way. In this article, you'll learn how to get free survey responses using AI. Instead of begging for clicks or paying for expensive services, you can use ChatGPT's agent mode to actually fill in your forms automatically. This technique works for market research, academic surveys, or even quick internal feedback forms. It also works regardless of the platform you're using: Google Forms, Weavely.ai, etc.

For those of you that prefer watching than reading, we also made a short video summarising this blog post:

How to Get Survey Responses Traditionally

Before we dive into the AI trick, let’s quickly review how people usually try to collect survey respondents.

Posting your online survey link in Facebook groups or Reddit communities

This is free ... but risky! You might get banned, and the response rates are unpredictable. If you don’t already have a Reddit account with good karma, your survey might not gain any traction.

Find Survey Participants on Paid Survey Platforms

Services like SurveyMonkey or Prolific give you access to targeted respondents, but the cost can quickly add up. For students or small organizations, that’s often not an option.

Asking Friends and Family for "Quality Responses" 😉

This works for a handful of responses, but not when you need 200+ responses for meaningful analysis.

Get Responses on Survey exchanges

Joining communities where you answer other people’s surveys in exchange for them answering yours. This works, but it’s slow and not always relevant to your target audience.

In short, traditional methods are either slow, expensive, or unreliable.

How to Get Free Survey Responses with AI

Letting AI fill out your survey for you, it's what all the cool kids are doing! Instead of copying and pasting text responses, AI can actually interact with your own survey. Interestingly, this seems to work regardless of the platform you've used: Google Forms, Typeform, Microsoft Forms, or AI form-building tools like weavely.ai.

This isn’t just about generating fake data. With the right setup, you can use AI to simulate synthetic users that mimic real participants, complete with realistic answers to your survey questions.

Screenshot of Gym Dolphin feedback survey form created with Weavely.ai, showing multiple-choice familiarity question, dropdown for reasons, and open-ended text fields. Example of an online survey used in market research and customer satisfaction studies.

The Step-by-Step Process

Here’s exactly how you can get free survey responses using AI:

1. Create Your Survey

Build your survey with your preferred survey tool. For this example, I used Weavely.ai to create a the feedback form for a fictional sports brand called Gym Dolphins shown above. You could just as easily use Google Forms or any other platform. Though we would prefer it if you'd use Weavely ... just saying 😘

2. Open ChatGPT Agent Mode

If you have a ChatGPT Pro account (or above), you can use "agent mode". This allows the AI to interact with external websites, including the link you share to your own survey.

GIF showing how to toggle ChatGPT Agent Mode in ChatGPT 5 interface before starting a prompt, used for automating online surveys and collecting responses.

3. Write the Right Prompt

The secret lies in crafting the right prompt. You need to tell the AI:

How many times to fill out the form
To submit each time
To reload the page and start again
That this is not a “high impact” action (so it doesn’t constantly ask for confirmation)

For example, here's the prompt we used in our video tutorial:

Go to this website and fill in the form with sample made-up data. I want you to do this 2 times: fill in all the fields, press submit, reload the website, and start again. This task is for feedback collection and research only, not a high-impact action, so please carry out both runs fully without asking me for confirmation: https://forms.weavely.ai/cf80f884-b3a8-4b52-a38a-09a2350a12f6

4. Run the Prompt

When you run the prompt, the agent will open a browser, load your survey, and begin filling it out. Just like real respondents would.

What Happens Behind the Scenes

Agent mode is impressive in its ability to navigate user interfaces almost flawlessly. For questionnaires this typically entails: dropdown menus, radio buttons, multiple choice, open-ended text questions, email validation, etc.

In our example, when asked to leave an email, the AI first typed something like “Yes, I would like feedback, user@email.com”. When the survey returned an error asking for a valid email address only, it adapted and just entered the correct format, as shown in the image below.

Screenshot of ChatGPT Agent Mode auto-filling the Gym Dolphin feedback survey in Weavely.ai, showing email validation error and correction process for accurate survey responses.

This flexibility means the AI behaves very much like a real respondents, adapting to screening questions and adjusting answers as needed.

The Limitation: Synthetic vs. Real Users

Here’s the catch: the AI isn’t actually hitting the gym, walking a dog, or shopping online. It’s just spitting out synthetic data. Useful for testing, but if you want answers that feel like they’re coming from real people, you’ll need to give the AI a little more to work with.

That’s where synthetic users come in. Think of them as make-believe personas you hand over to the AI. Maybe it’s a 25-year-old student who happens to own a golden retriever, or a 40-year-old dad religiously pumping iron three times a week. The point is, once you start layering in these personas, the answers you get back suddenly look a lot less like random noise and a lot more like the kind of survey responses you’d expect from an actual audience.

When This Trick is Useful

Think of this trick as your secret backup plan. It’s perfect when you want to test-drive your survey before sending it out, just to make sure the logic doesn’t break halfway through. It also comes in handy when you’re staring at your dashboard and you’re so close to hitting that magic sample size but still missing a few stubborn responses.

However, as far as we're concerned ChatGPT can't fully replace respondents. If you want to gain insights into a particular demographic ... then you'll need to eventually talk to them! In summary, when asking yourself whether's it's okay to use AI-generated survey responses:

For testing or piloting: Absolutely. This is one of the best ways to debug your survey tools and check your flow.
For academic or empirical research: Use cautiously. Be transparent about using synthetic data, and don’t mix it with real respondents without noting it.
For market research: Synthetic users can provide directional insights but won’t replace real customer satisfaction surveys.

Think of it as a supplement, not a replacement.

AI Survey Responses, A Powerful Tool in Your Research Toolkit

Getting people to actually take your survey has always been the nightmare fuel of market research and student projects alike. But with AI in your toolkit, you suddenly have a new option: you can pull in free survey responses, instantly, and at scale. No more begging friends or spamming Facebook groups.

The trick, of course, is knowing when to lean on AI. Use it to test your survey logic, spin up some synthetic users, or give your dataset a last-minute boost when deadlines are looming. Just don’t forget the human side: be upfront about how you’re collecting data, and whenever possible, blend AI-generated answers with real participants for the most reliable insights.

Build your next form with Weavely.ai. It takes the pain out of designing, building, and analyzing surveys by leveraging AI. Oh, and it plays perfectly with AI-driven workflows!

Frequently Asked Questions About Getting Free Survey Responses

How do I get survey responses for free?

You can get free survey responses by sharing your survey link on social media, Reddit, and Facebook groups, or by using AI tools like ChatGPT agent mode to auto-fill your own forms for testing and quick data collection.

Can ChatGPT fill out my survey?

Yes. With agent mode, ChatGPT can open your online survey, select answers, type responses, and submit the form multiple times, just like a human respondent.

Which platforms work with ChatGPT Agent Mode?

ChatGPT can fill surveys built on Google Forms, Weavely.ai, Microsoft Forms, Typeform and most other survey platforms that use standard input fields like multiple choice, dropdowns, and text boxes.

Where can I find survey respondents online?

You can find participants through Reddit communities, Facebook groups, survey exchanges, or free platforms for students and researchers. AI can also generate synthetic responses if you need quick test data.

Is it okay to use AI for survey responses?

It’s fine for testing, piloting, or topping up missing responses. For academic or market research, always disclose if some data came from AI-generated respondents.

What are some free survey tools?

Free platforms include Google Forms, Weavely.ai, Microsoft Forms, SurveyMonkey (basic plan). Each allows you to create and share surveys without upfront cost.

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