Prepare an interview with AI: a six-step method

Set the goal of the interview

Start with one sentence that says what you need from this person. It can be a fact only they know, their reaction to a document, the explanation of a decision or a confirmation on the record. The goal sets the length of the interview, the order of the questions and the documents you bring.

A guide from the International Press Institute, republished by GIJN, advises deciding what you want to get out of each interview. A profile may call for several long meetings. A confirmation may take one precise question.

Then write two lists. The first holds what you already know. The second holds what only this person can tell you, and it becomes the core of your questions.

Gather what the person has already said

Collect the person’s public statements: interviews, speeches, press releases, annual reports, hearings, minutes of meetings and posts on social media. For each statement, note the date, the medium, the exact words and the link. Sort them by date. A change of position between two dates often gives the first question.

Poynter quotes a reporter who tries to know almost as much as her expert sources before she meets them. It also gives the example of an opening question that showed the reporter knew the subject well. The person then answered at length.

An AI agent or search tool can collect these statements in minutes. Ask it for the link and the exact passage behind each quote, then open each link yourself. Keep only the statements whose source you have opened.

Read the documents and list the contradictions

Next, read the documents that concern the person: reports, registers, minutes, court decisions, accounts, letters and emails passed on by sources. For each fact, note the document, the page and the date.

Then compare the statements with the documents. A table with three columns is enough: - what the person said, with the date and the source - what the documents show, with the page - the gap between the two

Take an investigation into a plant. In 2021, the former safety manager of unit 3 told the annual meeting that the unit met every standard. The inspection report of March records a second warning from the regulator. The gap between the two gives a question.

Also list the subjects the person avoids. They show up as topics missing from their statements, questions declined in earlier interviews and answers that move to another subject.

AI agents can read hundreds of pages and pull out every passage that names the person. Ask for the page number of each passage, so that you can check it in the original.

Write the questions and the follow-ups

Write each question in one sentence and ask one question at a time. Poynter notes that a double question lets the person choose the easier half. Open questions, starting with how, what or why, bring explanations. Closed questions put a person on the record about a precise fact.

Phrase the key questions with the facts from your documents. GIJN describes a reporter who asked a federal agency for a figure it was responsible for tracking. The official admitted that he did not know it. GIJN adds that such an admission should be repeated in a follow-up question, so that it is clearly on the record.

For each key question, prepare the follow-ups: - if the person denies, the passage of the document you will show - if the person answers another question, the same question in other words - if the person gives a figure, a request for its source - if the person blames someone else, a question about who knew and when

The International Press Institute guide advises starting with less sensitive questions and keeping the hardest ones for later. It also suggests attributing a criticism to its author, for example “Your opponents say this. How do you respond?” If you expect to get only one question, decide in advance which one it will be.

Prepare a closing question. At the end, ask whether the person wants to add anything, who else you should talk to and whether you may call back to check a detail.

Prepare the checks for the interview

List the facts the person is likely to state: figures, dates, names of documents and decisions. For each one, mark the page that confirms or contradicts it, and keep those pages at hand. When the person cites a document you do not have, ask for a copy.

Keep a separate list of claims to check after the interview. A figure quoted from memory, a date or a name each needs checking before publication.

Some people ask for the questions in writing. Investigative reporters quoted by GIJN explain that written answers do not work for accountability questions, because the follow-up questions depend on the answers. Say so when you request the interview. State its real purpose too. The same GIJN article advises against presenting an interview as a profile and then raising allegations.

Recording and consent

Record the interview, so that every quote can be checked against the person’s exact words. Tell the person before you start.

In France, Article 226-1 of the Criminal Code makes it an offence to record words spoken in a private or confidential capacity without the speaker’s consent. The penalty is one year in prison and a €45,000 fine. It rises to two years and €60,000 in several cases, including when the person holds an elected office or is a candidate for one. Consent is presumed when the recording is made openly, with the person’s knowledge, and the person could have objected and did not.

The simplest practice is to announce the recording at the start and to capture the person’s agreement at the beginning of the file. Rules differ from one country to another, so check the law of the place where the interview happens.

Agree on the terms before the first question: on the record, off the record or background. Poynter points out that a person cannot put a statement off the record after making it.

What general AI assistants get wrong

General AI assistants can help with preparation, and their answers need checking. In October 2025, the European Broadcasting Union and the BBC published a study by 22 public service media organisations in 18 countries. Journalists assessed more than 3,000 answers from four AI assistants to questions about the news. 45% of the answers had at least one significant issue.

Quotes carry a specific risk. Of 1,053 answers that contained a direct quote, 12% had significant problems with the accuracy of that quote. The study found quotes that had been altered and others that appeared to be invented. Some answers cited sources that did not support the claim they were attached to.

Outdated information was one of the most common problems. For an interview, this means a job title, a position or a figure may no longer be current. A quote that appears only in an AI summary is a lead to check. Find it in the original source, with its date and context, before you put it to the person. Our glossary entry on AI hallucination explains where these errors come from.

Preparing an interview with Verbatim

Verbatim gives you a team of AI agents, from the first lead to the final draft. For an interview, the agents prepare the meeting, follow it live and transcribe it.

Before you meet someone, the Prep agent gathers what they have said before, what the documents show and the questions they will try to avoid. It does this for every meeting in your calendar. Each quote keeps its date and its source, and each fact points to the exact excerpt it comes from. Verbatim’s agents read up to 40,000 pages of documents and answer with the exact page. The prep sits in your project with the questions ready, and you edit them at any time. When the Monitoring agent finds a new fact about the person, the prep adds it.

The People agent finds who knows the subject and how to reach them. It drafts the interview request, cites the document behind it and contacts the source once you have reviewed the message.

On the day, Verbatim transcribes every word and checks every sentence live, as it is spoken. It compares each answer with your documents, your sources, the web and everything the person has said before. When an answer contradicts the documents, the passage that proves it appears while the person is still speaking.

The transcription separates the voices and timestamps every passage. Each quote is copied word for word from the recording. A quote found only in an AI summary is never counted as verified. Recordings are hosted and processed in Europe, and they are never used to train a third-party AI.

Sources

• Poynter, How journalists can become better interviewers (Chip Scanlan, 2013)
• GIJN, The Art of the Interview, excerpt from an International Press Institute guide (2014)
• GIJN, How to Land and Nail the Accountability Interview (2022)
• Légifrance, French Criminal Code, Article 226-1 (in French)
• EBU and BBC, News Integrity in AI Assistants, report, October 2025