Use Gemini in Google Forms to Find Themes in Stakeholder Survey Answers

What This Does

After a stakeholder survey for a materiality assessment closes, Gemini can summarize the open-text answers and group them into themes. You get a faster first read of what people wrote. You still read the answers yourself, edit the themes, and make the judgment calls.

Before You Start

• You have a form with open text questions and enough responses. Google's help page says summaries appear once there are 3 to 200 responses, theme generation works best with 8 to 200 responses, and the theme button is unavailable above 200. The page also says the button is grayed out at 8 or fewer, or over 500, so check that page if you land near those edges.
• Your Google account has an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan, as the page states. The page also notes the feature is offered through Google Workspace Experiments, which is for personal accounts. If you use a business Workspace account, confirm with your admin that Gemini is turned on for your organization.
• The form is not in quiz mode. The page says summaries are not generated for quiz responses.
• You wrote the survey so it avoids collecting what you do not need. Where possible, leave email address collection off and tell respondents how their answers will be used, in the form description. Look in the form's Settings for the options on collecting email addresses, since the exact layout changes.
• Free-text answers can contain names of people, small teams or suppliers. Read through them before sharing summaries outside your project team, and treat the responses as confidential if respondents were promised that.

Steps

1. Open the responses

Open the form in Google Forms and click Responses at the top. Per the page, a summary for each text question is generated automatically in the summary block. Use Retry for a new summary and Copy to copy it. The page says generated summaries are not saved, so copy what you need.

The page also says summaries are not generated for direct questions such as names and addresses.

2. Generate themes for one question

Scroll to a text question. Below its summary, click See theme percentages. To change the themes, click Modify themes. Use Add for a new theme or Delete category next to a name to remove one. Click See theme percentages again for the detailed view.

Google's page says this opens a new Google Sheet with a pie chart of the theme distribution and a count of responses for each theme. The page adds that themes use AI functions in Sheets, and that if you hit an error you can click Refresh & Generate in the Sheets side panel.

3. Read the answers behind each theme

Open the response sheet and read the actual answers. Check that each answer sits under a sensible theme, that nothing important is hidden inside a catch-all theme, and that an unusual answer from one stakeholder has not been absorbed into a common one. Rename and merge themes in your own words.

4. Count for yourself before you quote a number

The theme counts are Gemini's assignment of answers to themes. Do not quote them as results, and do not rank topics by them, until you have counted the answers yourself in the sheet, using a filter or COUNTIF on a column you add. Weigh each theme against who responded, because 10 responses from one customer group tell you something different from 10 spread across groups.

5. Hand the judgment to people

Which topics are material is a decision for you and leadership, using the evidence you gathered. The themes are an input and not a conclusion.

Real Example

Scenario (all data invented): Company A sent a short survey to 14 customers asking "Which sustainability topic matters most to you when you choose us, and why?" You get 14 text answers.

What you do: Open Responses, read the generated summary and click See theme percentages. Gemini proposes four themes: packaging waste, delivery emissions, supplier labor practices, and product durability. You rename "delivery emissions" to "transport and delivery".

Your check: You read all 14 answers and count. Gemini placed 5 answers under packaging waste, but one of those is about shipping boxes damaged in transit, which you move to transport and delivery. Your own count is 4 for packaging waste. You report the counts you made, with the sentence "14 customers responded, answers grouped by the team".

Tips

• Run the themes once with Gemini's grouping and once after your edits, and keep both versions in your working file.
• Keep the question wording in your notes. A theme only makes sense next to the question that produced it.
• Write the stakeholder summary yourself and cite the response count and the dates the form was open.

Tool interfaces change. If a button has moved, look for similar AI/magic/smart options in the same menu area. Google's current page: support.google.com/docs/answer/16231981, "Summarize & analyze responses with Gemini in Google Forms".