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Great Question's MCP server connects to Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT, and any MCP-compatible AI tool. You can create screener surveys and moderated or unmoderated studies, pull transcripts and highlight reels, search your research library, and draft interview discussion guides directly inside your AI coding environment.
MCP integration offers read and write access for research teams and product managers who want to hand off research operations to Great Question while managing studies right where they code. There's over 94 actions you can take with Great Question's MCP across your research workflow. It's one of the most comprehensive MCP's available for product teams on the market.
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard for connecting large language models to external tools and data sources. Rather than building separate integrations for every AI tool, it provides a common interface that works across Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, and similar platforms.
Think of MCP like USB-C for AI tools. Instead of custom cables and adapters for every device, one universal standard works everywhere.
Great Question's MCP server exposes your research data (studies, transcripts, participants, notes) and operations (creating studies, recruiting participants) to any AI tool that supports MCP. You can search your research library directly inside Claude or Cursor. You can draft interview guides while writing code. You can pull participant insights into your product specs. No more context switching.
Search your research library
Find studies by title or content. Pull transcripts, highlights, and insights for a specific study. Search across all your research for patterns and themes.
Example: "Search our research library for any studies mentioning feature X. What did participants say about it?"
View participant details
Pull participant profiles (name, role, company, industry, seniority). See which participants have been recruited, completed studies, or are scheduled.
Example: "List all participants from the last AI research round and their roles."
Draft discussion guides
Generate interview discussion guides based on your research or product specifications. Start from existing guides or create from scratch.
Example: "Draft a discussion guide for research on how operations teams use our platform. Use findings from the last research round to inform the guide."
Create and manage screener surveys (write access)
Build screener surveys to filter participants by role, industry, or experience. Save screeners and reuse them.
Example: "Create a screener survey to recruit finance managers at Series A SaaS companies."
Create and schedule studies (write access)
Set up moderated (live video) studies. Specify discussion guides, recruitment criteria, and participant incentives. You can also manage the scheduling windows for your participants.
Example: "Set up a moderated study with 8 participants from the finance manager screener, paying $100 each, with the discussion guide we just drafted."
Recruit participants (write access)
Invite participants to studies from your existing pool or recruit new participants using Great Question's external panel (6M+ vetted B2B and B2C professionals).
Read-only access (Default)
Best for: Engineers, product managers, or product designers who want to query the research, but not run any research themselves
Capabilities:
Search studies and transcripts
Pull highlights and insights
View participant profiles
Draft discussion guides
This is the current default. Everyone using Great Question's MCP integration can read your research data. This lets your entire product team make decisions grounded in user feedback without crowding the research ops queue.
Write access (available now!)
Best for: Researchers, product managers, or product designers who need to run research
Additional capabilities:
Create and edit screeners for surveys
Create and schedule interview and survey studies
Recruit participants
Update study status
Manage scheduling
Manage participants
Admins get to control who gets write permissions in your Great Question workspace. Most teams will give write access to one or two research ops people and read-only access to the rest of the organization.
Step 1: Enable MCP integration
We have full set up guide here.
Step 2: Connect to your AI tool
For Claude Desktop or Claude Code, add the integration to your config file. For Cursor or ChatGPT plugins, use the endpoint and API key during setup.
Step 3: Query your research
Inside Claude or Cursor, reference Great Question directly: "Search my research for any studies about pricing models. What did participants say about willingness to pay?"
The MCP server returns study summaries, transcripts, and key insights. No copy-pasting. No leaving your editor.
You're building a new feature and want to check existing research before you spec it out.
1. Open Claude Code and ask: "Search Great Question for any studies on how users currently handle [task]. Summarize the main pain points."
2. Claude pulls the relevant studies and highlights.
3. You review the findings while your code is open in the same window.
4. You reference those findings directly in your spec: "Based on research, we know users struggle with X; our solution addresses Y."
5. Later, if you're recruiting for followup research, ask Claude: "Draft a discussion guide that probes deeper into the pain point we identified." Claude generates a guide using your research as context.
No more research locked in a separate tool. No more forgetting what you learned because it was somewhere else.
An engineer is building a feature and wants to make sure edge cases are covered. They open Cursor and ask:
1. "Pull the transcript from our last usability study. What edge cases or unexpected behaviors did we observe?"
2. Cursor fetches the transcript and highlights the moments where users did something unexpected.
3. The engineer reviews the actual video clips and notes right there in Cursor.
4. The engineer writes a test case based on the observed behavior: "This test ensures users can still [action] even in the scenario our research uncovered."
Data security
All communication with Great Question's MCP server uses encrypted API keys. Only authenticated users with access to your Great Question workspace can query your research data through MCP.
Workspace permissions
Your Great Question workspace permissions apply to MCP. If someone doesn't have access to your workspace, they can't query your research through MCP, even if they're on the same team and have access to Claude or Cursor.
With write access you can:
Set up studies directly from Claude or Cursor
Recruit participants as part of your workflow
Update study status without switching tools
Manage all research operations inside your coding environment
Watch Great Question's MCP feature page for updates. We're continuing to bring more power to the MCP.
Can everyone in our workspace query our research through MCP?
Only people with access to your Great Question workspace can access research through MCP. MCP respects the same permissions as the Great Question app itself.
What if I want some people to have read access but not others?
Set workspace permissions in Great Question. You can invite specific team members to your workspace and control their access level. People outside your workspace won't be able to query your research even if they have access to Claude or Cursor.
How do I enable MCP?
In Great Question, go to Settings Integrations and enable the MCP server. You'll get an API key. Then follow the integration instructions for your AI tool (Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.).
Does MCP slow down my AI queries?
No. MCP requests are made asynchronously. When you ask an AI tool to search Great Question, the request goes to our server, returns results, and integrates into the conversation. The process is fast and doesn't block your normal AI interactions.
Can I use MCP with ChatGPT or other non-Anthropic tools?
Yes. MCP is an open standard. Any MCP-compatible tool (ChatGPT, Codeium, Replit, etc.) can connect to Great Question. If your AI tool supports MCP, it can access Great Question.
What if I have confidential research I don't want exposed through MCP?
MCP queries respect workspace permissions. If you want certain studies to be accessible only to specific people, create a separate workspace for confidential research. Only invite the people who should see it. They'll be able to query it through MCP; others won't.
Can I query Great Question through MCP if I'm offline?
No. MCP requires an internet connection to Great Question's servers. If you're offline, you won't be able to access research through MCP, but you can still use Claude, Cursor, or other tools normally.
I'm not a researcher. Will I understand how to use MCP?
MCP is designed for anyone who uses research, not just researchers. A product manager might ask, "Show me what users said about pricing." An engineer might ask, "Pull the bugs we discovered in the last usability test." You don't need research training to benefit from having your research data accessible in context.
The best part of MCP is that it lets your entire team make better decisions based on user research without needing a dedicated research person in every conversation. Your research team does the work once. Everyone else gets access to the insights where they need them: right where they're building.
Ready to connect Great Question to your AI workflow? Enable MCP in Settings Integrations, choose your AI tool, and start querying your research.
Related: External recruitment for participant sourcing · AI Moderated Interviews · Moderated prototype testing · The complete guide to prototype testing
Tania Clarke is a B2B SaaS product marketer focused on using customer research and market insight to shape positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategy.
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