[Changelog] What's new with the Rally Agent and MCP

Wednesday July 22nd: Rally Agent + MCP: Beta is Live

The Rally Agent and Rally MCP are now live in Beta, and you can opt in today.

If this is your first time hearing about Rally Agent or Rally MCP, here's what you need to know.

Rally Agent is a new experience inside Rally, built for product builders. Instead of navigating the Rally Research app (which you’re likely pretty familiar with at this point!), your PMs and designers can chat directly with the Rally Agent and build their own studies within the guardrails you set. No training required, no research expertise assumed, no ability to go rogue.

Rally MCP takes that same capability outside Rally. It connects to AI tools your team already uses, like Claude or Cursor, so anyone can run research from inside their existing workflow (and within the guardrails you set) without ever opening Rally.

Two entry points. The same Rally research infrastructure underneath.

Built for research. Grounded in governance.

Rally Agent is built on the governance your research team has already established. Every action automatically follows your engagement rules, cooldown periods, consent requirements, contact limits, and approval workflows, so product teams can move quickly while Research Ops stays in control.

Rally Agent focuses on the operational work that slows research down. It helps teams create studies, recruit participants, schedule interviews, manage incentives, and handle the logistics that turn a research question into a completed session.

What's Rally Agent, and what's Rally MCP?

These are two different ways to run Research in Rally. Same research infrastructure underneath – 2 different entry points.

Rally Agent is built into your Rally workspace. Open it, type a request, it acts. No configuration required.

Rally MCP is a Model Context Protocol server. It connects Rally to MCP-compatible AI tools so you can drive research from inside Claude, build Rally into a custom agent, or embed it in a team workflow outside Rally's interface entirely.

Get started with the Rally Agent & MCP

Below is everything that's live across both the Agent and MCP, with a small set of MCP-only features noted separately.

❓ Ask questions about your research

Get instant answers without clicking through the app.

• "Who's booked this week?"

• "Are we on track to hit our participant target?"

• "What did P3 say about pricing in their session?"

• "Which studies are still in draft?"

• "Find customers in San Francisco who've shopped online in the last 30 days."

• "What needs my input across my studies?"

⚒ Build and launch a 1:1 interview study

End-to-end study setup, start to finish, in a conversation.

• "Set up an onboarding interview study."

• "Import this CSV and start a study with these people."

• "Add a screener question about company size."

• "Drop the age question from the screener."

• "Bump the incentive to $75 and change the duration to 45 minutes."

• "Attach our standard consent form."

• "Publish the onboarding study."

💬 Manage interviews

Run your full interview schedule without leaving your AI tool.

• "Reschedule Jane's interview to Thursday at 2pm."

• "Cancel tomorrow's session with Alyssa."

• "Book Adam for Tuesday at 2pm."

• "Move tomorrow's 2pm interview to Sarah."

• "Add Jamie as a guest to Friday's session."

• "Derek was a no-show, mark it."

• "Block my Fridays from the scheduler."

• "Prep me for my 3pm with Markus." (generates a full interview brief)

⚙ Handle participant logistics

Make one-off updates to your studies on the fly. 

• "Add 20 more people to the onboarding study."

• "Disqualify Mo from my study."

• "Show me Hector's screener responses."

🫡 Stay on top of recruiting

Watch invites and targeting in real time, and adjust the moment something's off.

• "Can we target 20 senior engineers in fintech from our existing panel?"

• "Approve the recruitment proposal for the onboarding study."

• "How many invites went out? Any bounces?"

• "Has Adam received my invitation email?"

• "Pause recruiting while we fix the screener."

💰 Manage incentives

Approve, adjust, and log payments without leaving the conversation.

• "Approve incentive sends for yesterday's interviews."

• "Resend Walter's gift card, it bounced."

• "Set up a $50 gift card as a custom incentive and log it as sent for Priya."

MCP-only (for now)

A small set of capabilities are available in the MCP but not yet in the in-app Agent:

• Create a new population or panel

• Look up custom person property definitions

• List and preview a study's email campaigns and templates

• View detailed consent form status and quota membership data per participant

Workflows to try first

Not sure where to start? Here are some examples to test out first: 

• Morning standup, AI-style "What interviews do I have today? What needs my input across my studies? Any recruiting decisions pending?"

• Build and launch a study in one go "Find customers in our panel who haven't participated in a study. Create an onboarding interview study with a screener that checks for relevant experience. Set the incentive to $75 for 45 minutes."

• Interview day, handled "Who am I talking to today? Pull their screener responses and prep me for each session." Then after each session: "Mark P1 as attended. Note that they raised pricing concerns. Approve their incentive."

• Recruiting health check "How's the onboarding study tracking? How many invites went out, how many opened, any bounces?"

• Reschedule with context "Reschedule my interview with Priya to Thursday at 2pm ET. Show me other available times first."

Coming very soon to Rally MCP 

• Surveys: Create and manage full survey studies end-to-end.

• Unmoderated tests: Set up and launch unmoderated test studies.

• External panel recruitment: Recruit through User Interviews and Respondent.

• Screener and survey response mapping: Automatically store participant answers in their person profile.

• Study collaborators: Add teammates to a study.

The Agent will follow as these capabilities land.

Ready to opt in?

The Beta is free through September 15. Opt in here.

Questions? Reach your CSM or drop us a note at support@rallyuxr.com.