--- title: "Panels — query a whole audience at once | Minds" canonical_url: "https://getminds.ai/guide/panels" last_updated: "2026-06-14T16:23:20.065Z" meta: description: "Groups of Minds queried in parallel. Build one from existing Minds or from a plain-language audience description. Compare segments side-by-side." "og:description": "Groups of Minds queried in parallel. Build one from existing Minds or from a plain-language audience description. Compare segments side-by-side." "og:title": "Panels — query a whole audience at once | Minds" "twitter:description": "Groups of Minds queried in parallel. Build one from existing Minds or from a plain-language audience description. Compare segments side-by-side." "twitter:title": "Panels — query a whole audience at once | Minds" --- Minds Team # **Panels — query a whole audience at once** Groups of Minds queried in parallel. Build one from existing Minds or from a plain-language audience description. Compare segments side-by-side. A panel is a Group of Minds queried together. Instead of asking one person, you're asking your whole target audience at once — 8, 15, or 100 Minds responding in parallel, with answers auto-classified and aggregated. Teams name them different things: - **Marketing** — _customer panels_ - **Agencies** — _client insight panels_ - **Product** — _user panels_ - **Founders** — _expert panels / advisory boards_ The mechanic is the same: a representative sample of Minds, ready to query before a traditional brief is even finished. ## Building a Group — two paths ### Path 1 · Pick existing Minds 1. Turn on multi-select in the Minds list and pick the Minds you want. 2. Click **Create Group** in the action bar that appears. 3. The group is created instantly and named for you; rename it any time (_"Gen-Z Focus Group"_, _"Advisory Board"_). You can also click **New Group** and drag existing Minds straight into the panel. ### Path 2 · Describe your audience When you don't have the right Minds yet, describe the segment and let the platform build it: 1. Click **New Group** in the sidebar. The creation panel slides in. 2. Describe the audience — _"enterprise CTOs in San Francisco, SaaS, 500+ employees"_, _"working parents in Germany aged 30–45 with kids in school"_, _"B2B CMOs at Series-B companies"_. 3. Hit **Create**. The platform researches real sources for your segment and drafts a representative sample of Minds: you'll see the sources, the drafted personas, and a confidence label on the research grounding as they stream in. 4. Iterate: remove draft Minds you don't want, or type instructions into the rework box (_"make two of them more skeptical"_, _"add a rural segment"_) and hit **Rework**. 5. Accept with **Create**. Every Mind builds in parallel with its own progress bar, and keeps building in the background if you close the panel. This is the fastest way to go from _"I need to test this with my ICP"_ to _"I'm running the test."_ ## Running a panel Open the group in a chat. Ask your question, or drop in a stimulus — a landing page screenshot, a pitch deck, a competitor ad, a pricing page. Every Mind responds in parallel. ### How responses are classified Each question is auto-classified as one of three types: - **Scale** — numeric ratings (_"rate this from 1–10"_) → distribution + group averages - **Categorical** — discrete options (_"yes / no / maybe"_, _"which of these three headlines?"_) → percentage breakdowns - **Qualitative** — open-ended (_"what do you think about this concept?"_) → clustered themes Follow-ups are understood in context. Ask _"do you like ice cream?"_ then _"which flavor?"_ — the system knows what "which flavor" refers to and reformulates it as a standalone question for each Mind. ## Two groups in one chat This is where the insight is sharpest. Drop two (or more) groups into the same chat and ask one question — _"what's working on this landing page, what's not?"_ You get side-by-side views: _B2B marketing leaders_ vs. _mid-market SaaS CMOs_, for example. You see where they agree. You see where they pull apart. The contrast between segments is the research finding — not 12 people saying the same thing, but two calibrated audiences stress-testing your work at the same time. ## From panel to one-on-one Sometimes one response catches your eye. Click the Mind and you're in a private one-on-one with just her. Ask why. Challenge her logic. Show her a competitor. Ask what would change her mind. The panel chat stays saved in your sidebar, so you can hop straight back to the aggregate view. The panel gives you breadth. The pull-out gives you depth. ## Alignment Every panel answer block has an **Alignment** dropdown in the header. Open it to see two scores (0–100%) for each group: - **Personality match** — how closely each Mind's answer matched its own persona definition, averaged across the group. Read it as: _how on-character was this group's response_. A low score is a flag to read the individual responses before you act on the aggregate. - **Distribution match** — how closely the group's answer mix matched the original survey responses the group is grounded in (100 = identical, 0 = opposite). Shown for groups built on reference survey data; other groups display _Not available_. When a score comes in low, a one-line explanation of why appears in the score's tooltip. Alignment is computed after the chart renders, so each row shows _Calculating…_ until the scores land. ## Tips for good questions - **Be specific** — _"rate the clarity of this tagline from 1–5"_ beats _"what do you think?"_ - **Mix persona types** — combine skeptics and enthusiasts in the same group for balanced feedback. - **Iterate** — follow-up questions drill deeper into the interesting responses. - **Run the same question across different groups** — the delta is the insight. ## Panel vs. chat | | Chat | Panel | | --- | --- | --- | | **Interaction** | back-and-forth conversation | question → structured group response | | **Minds** | 1 or more, sequential | Group, all respond in parallel | | **Output** | free-form messages | aggregated, classified, visualized | | **Best for** | deep exploration with one persona | fast research across a segment | --- _Panels turn your Minds into a research tool. Two groups, one question, two perspectives — that's the shortest path from question to insight._