FEATURE RELEASE

Emerging Themes

Surface new themes when tracking open-ended data

How to Track Open-Ended Survey Responses Across Waves Without Missing What's New

Fathom now automatically surfaces new and emerging themes when you re-apply a saved code frame, whether you're analyzing survey responses, interviews, or social data. For market research agencies and insights teams running wave-over-wave research, that means consistency and discovery at the same time.

How to analyze apen-ended survey data across waves

If you run tracking studies, brand trackers, or recurring surveys with open-ended questions, you already know the challenge.

Analyzing open-ended data across waves requires consistency: the same themes, coded the same way, so you can measure change over time. But rigid thematic analysis frameworks can cause you to miss what's new: themes emerging for the first time that your existing code frame doesn't yet capture.

Traditional text analytics tools and qualitative coding software like NVivo, ATLAS.ti, and Qualtrics TextIQ were not built for this problem. They give you structure, or they give you discovery. Rarely both, and never automatically.

Until now, spotting the gap meant manually combing through open-ended responses between waves. Tedious, time-consuming, and easy to miss things, especially at scale.

Fathom: AI text analysis software for open-ended data, tracking studies, and longitudinal research

Fathom is an AI text analysis tool built specifically for teams who work with open-ended data at scale: market research agencies, in-house insights teams, and CX professionals running recurring research programs.

Unlike general-purpose text analytics platforms, Fathom combines AI-powered thematic coding with human-in-the-loop control, so you get the speed of automation without sacrificing the rigor that research requires.

For longitudinal and wave-over-wave open-ended analysis, Fathom already offered a more complete toolkit than most text analytics solutions on the market:

Saved code frames: build your thematic taxonomy once using Fathom's AI-assisted coding, and reuse it across every wave or project, maintaining consistency without rebuilding from scratch
Stat Assist: automatically flag where theme distributions have shifted meaningfully between waves, without manual cross-tabs or exports to other tools
Fathomer, our AI agent: query within and across waves to generate report-ready insights for key segments, the fastest way to move from open-ended data to stakeholder-ready analysis
Segmentation: slice your open-ended data by any attribute to focus on the segments that matter most to your research question

Introducing Emerging Themes: never miss a new theme in your open-ended tracking data

Fathom now takes open-ended tracking analysis a step further with Emerging Themes, a new capability that automatically identifies themes present in your latest dataset that are not yet captured in your existing code frame.

When you re-apply a saved code frame in Fathom, the AI analyzes your new open-ended data against your existing taxonomy and surfaces suggested new themes you can review, add, or dismiss in a few clicks.

No more manual gap analysis between waves. No more missed signals buried in your open-ended responses.

How Fathom automatically detects new and emerging themes in open-ended data

Import your saved code frame from a previous wave or project. Fathom runs your new dataset against your existing thematic taxonomy, then surfaces AI-generated theme suggestions alongside your saved codes, flagging what's new, what's shifting, and what your current frame may not be capturing.

You stay in control. Review each suggestion, add what belongs, dismiss what doesn't. The result is a code frame that stays consistent over time while remaining responsive to what your respondents are actually saying.

Open-Ended tracking use cases: wave-over-wave research, concept testing, and taxonomy reuse

Wave-over-wave tracking and longitudinal research For brand trackers, U&A studies, and any recurring research program with open-ended data, Emerging Themes ensures your thematic framework evolves with your data. Map how existing themes are shifting in volume over time, while automatically catching new themes before they become trends you've already missed.

Concept testing with open-ended responses Apply a consistent code frame across multiple concepts or stimuli for reliable comparison, while still allowing meaningful differences between concepts to surface. Get the comparability of structured thematic analysis without losing the nuance that open-ended responses are there to capture.

Taxonomy reuse across clients, markets, or product categories For market research agencies managing multiple clients or recurring projects, Emerging Themes makes it practical to reuse and adapt code frames across different datasets, applying existing thematic structure to new open-ended data while flagging where the new context introduces new themes.

Why Fathom is a better open-ended analysis tool for tracking research

Most text analytics tools and thematic analysis software were designed for one-time analysis of a single dataset. Tools like NVivo, ATLAS.ti, and Qualtrics TextIQ lack the infrastructure for longitudinal open-ended research: saved taxonomies, wave-over-wave comparison, statistical significance testing, and now automatic theme discovery between waves.

Fathom was built from the ground up for teams who analyze open-ended data repeatedly, across waves, across projects, and across clients. It combines the structure of qualitative coding software with the scale and speed of AI-powered analysis, giving insights teams and research agencies a faster, more rigorous alternative to manual thematic analysis or general-purpose text analytics platforms.

Analyze your open-ended data in Fathom

Whether you're running a brand tracker, NPS program, U&A study, customer interviews, or social data analysis, Fathom gives research teams the consistency, discovery, and depth to turn open-ended data into confident decisions, wave after wave.

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