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The biggest worry with bringing in outside research help is that you will end up with another contractor to manage on top of everything else.
Akraya's embedded UX research model is built to avoid that. You get a dedicated researcher who works inside your product team, while Akraya handles the management, continuity, and delivery behind them.
This guide explains what that looks like in practice and what Akraya manages so the extra capacity doesn't create extra work for you.
What an embedded UX research team looks like at Akraya
Akraya gives you a dedicated researcher who joins your product team and works closely with it over time. They attend your team's meetings, learn your product, users, stakeholders, and roadmap, and help work out which questions need research. Then they plan and run those studies as the needs come up.
The same researcher stays with your team across multiple studies, so their knowledge keeps building. They do not have to relearn your product every time a new research question comes up.
Akraya handles the work around them. We find the researcher, manage the engagement, keep delivery on track, provide coverage when needed, and stay accountable for the work. So you get the continuity of having a researcher embedded in your team without having to hire, manage, or replace that person yourself.
Put simply: you get a dedicated researcher inside your team, and we manage everything behind them.
That also makes embedded research different from a one-off study. A rapid study answers one specific question and ends when the findings are delivered. An embedded researcher stays with your team across studies and across the roadmap, so the context they build in one study carries into the next instead of resetting every time.
Who Akraya's embedded UX research services are for
Embedded research works best when your need is ongoing. It is a good fit when research questions keep coming up across the roadmap and one-off studies are not enough to keep up. A few signs this model makes sense for your team:
You lead product or research at an enterprise
Research requests are coming from one or more product teams, and your current team cannot absorb all of them.
You need research sprint after sprint
New questions keep coming up as the product moves, and hiring a separate partner for every study creates gaps and extra ramp-up.
Your research is foundational and strategic
The work informs what the team builds next and shapes the roadmap, so it calls for a researcher involved in the product direction as it develops.
Hiring is too slow, frozen, or hard to justify
A full-time hire could take months, headcount may be frozen, or the work may not fit neatly into one permanent role.
If you only need one focused study, a rapid research engagement is usually the better fit. Embedded research is for teams that need research running continuously alongside the roadmap.
How an Akraya embedded engagement works day to day
Once the researcher joins your team, they work alongside it. They attend meetings, follow the roadmap, learn what each product team is working on, and start spotting research needs before they become last-minute requests.
When a question comes up, the researcher helps turn it into a clear study, runs the research, and brings the findings back to the people making the decision. If someone asks for research without a clear objective, the researcher works with them to sharpen the question first. That means your team does not have to spend its time turning vague requests into runnable studies.
Because the same researcher stays involved, each new study starts with the context from the last one instead of a fresh onboarding period, so the work gets faster as it goes.
If the work involves sensitive systems, customer information, or unreleased products, the researcher can also work inside your tools and environment so the research happens without moving sensitive information somewhere else.
Behind the researcher, Akraya runs the engagement through a program-management office (PMO). The PMO keeps the work on schedule, manages responsibilities and resourcing, handles changes as your needs shift, and stays accountable for delivery.
That is what makes the model different from simply placing a contractor on your team.
How Akraya staffs an embedded team with the right researchers
An embedded model only works if the researcher is the right fit for the work. We don't keep a fixed bench and assign whoever happens to be free. Instead, we use our recruiting network to find the researcher who best matches your product, your users, and the questions your team needs answered.
That matters because different products need very different research expertise. A hardware program may need a human factors researcher. An AI product may need someone who understands how people interact with AI systems. A quantitative program may need a researcher with a completely different skill set.
Our network includes PhD-level human factors and quantitative researchers, AI interaction specialists, and senior hardware and human-technology researchers. The goal is simple: give you the researcher who fits the work instead of the one who happens to be available.
And for larger enterprise programs, embedded doesn't have to mean one researcher. We can build a team of researchers across several product groups and manage them through one PMO. That gives each team the expertise it needs while keeping the standards, management, and accountability consistent across the program.
How embedded research is different from staffing
Akraya has spent 25 years staffing large technology companies, so we know what staffing is good at and where its responsibility ends. Our embedded model starts with that same recruiting strength, then adds a managed layer on top.
Here is the difference:
Staffing: you manage the researcher
With staffing, Akraya finds the right researcher and places them on your team. That solves the hiring problem, but your team still runs the work.
You decide what the researcher should do, manage them day to day, review the quality, handle gaps when they are unavailable, and own whether the research succeeds.
You are buying a researcher. Managing the work stays with you.
Embedded managed service: Akraya manages the research
With embedded research, you still get a dedicated researcher working inside your team, but Akraya also manages the program around them.
The researcher works with your stakeholders to identify research needs, plans and runs the studies, and brings the findings back to the people making the decisions.
Behind them, our PMO manages resourcing, timelines, service levels, and delivery. Your team still owns the product strategy and the decisions. We own making sure the research gets done.
That is the key difference.
Our staffing experience gives us the ability to find the right people. The managed-services layer gives you the accountability and continuity that turn those people into a research program your team can rely on.
How Akraya protects your data, IP, and unreleased products
An embedded researcher works closely with your team every day, so security has to be clear from the start. We are set up to work inside enterprise environments without forcing sensitive information into a separate vendor setup.
Research stays inside your environment
The researcher can work in your systems and tools, so sensitive data, recordings, and findings stay inside your environment.
We can run unbranded research on unreleased products
If you are testing something that has not launched yet, we can run the study as an unnamed third party.
That means participants can take part in the research without learning which company or product is behind it.
We are set up for enterprise procurement
We carry the security documentation, insurance, and participant-payment processes large companies typically review before research can begin, so the study doesn't get stuck in procurement after the product team is already ready to start.
When an embedded team fits, and when a rapid study fits better
An embedded team makes the most sense when the research need is ongoing. If questions keep coming up sprint after sprint, the work shapes the roadmap, or a product team needs research woven into its day-to-day decisions, having the same researcher involved over time becomes much more valuable.
A rapid study is a better fit when you have one clear question and a decision coming up soon. In that case, you may not need someone embedded for months. You need a focused study that can get you reliable findings in one to three weeks.
You can read more about that model in how Akraya runs rapid UX research.
Choose an embedded team when
Research demand is ongoing, the work is foundational or roadmap-level, or the team needs the same researcher involved across many studies.
Choose a rapid study when
You have one specific question, a decision coming up soon, and you need the answer in one to three weeks.
Here is what that can look like in practice:
A hardware team developing a new device may have research questions at every stage, from early prototypes through pre-launch testing. An embedded researcher who already understands the device, users, and constraints can keep running those studies as the product changes.
An AI product team may need to keep testing how users understand, trust, and respond to new assistant behaviors. An embedded researcher can follow those changes over time instead of treating every release as a completely new project. In both cases, the value comes from having someone who already understands the product when the next research question comes up.
And you don't have to choose one model for everything. Because Akraya offers both embedded and rapid research, you can keep an embedded researcher on one program and run a fast, focused study for another team under the same partner. That means one relationship, one procurement process, and less time spent onboarding another vendor every time the type of research changes.
The benefits of partnering with Akraya for embedded UX research
With an embedded team in place, research can keep moving with the roadmap instead of falling behind it. Your product teams get evidence while decisions are still open, your internal researchers get more time for the work that needs their context, and you add capacity without taking on another full-time hire to recruit and manage.
Here is what that gives you:
Research that keeps up with the roadmap
The researcher stays close to the team and runs studies as new questions come up, so findings arrive while the team can still use them instead of after the decision has already been made.
Product knowledge that builds over time
The same senior researcher stays with your team across studies. They keep learning the product, users, stakeholders, and previous findings, so each new study starts with more context and gets sharper over time.
More capacity without another person to manage
You get a dedicated researcher plus the program-management support behind them.
Akraya handles the management, resourcing, delivery, defined outcomes, and service levels, so your team gets the research capacity without taking on the work of hiring and managing another employee.
More time for your internal team to focus on strategy
We take on more of the execution, which gives your internal researchers more time for roadmap strategy, stakeholder relationships, and the high-context decisions that are hardest to hand off.
Vague research requests get scoped before they reach you
Product teams do not always know exactly what research they need.
An embedded researcher can work directly with the stakeholder to clarify the decision, tighten the question, and turn the request into a study that can actually be run, so less time gets spent turning loose requests into research briefs yourself.
Coverage that can grow across teams and markets
You can start with one researcher or build a larger research team across several product groups.
We can also staff researchers in the markets and time zones where your users are, while managing the work through one program and one point of accountability.
Faster research without giving up researcher judgment
We use AI to speed up parts of the work like analysis support and documentation. Researchers still lead the sessions, interpret what they see, synthesize the findings, and decide what those findings mean for the product, so turnaround gets shorter without lowering the quality of the research.
Akraya brings 25 years of experience working inside large technology organizations, with research support across software, hardware, wearables, and AI products.
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Embedded UX research teams FAQ:
How is an embedded team different from staff augmentation?
Staff augmentation gives you a researcher who joins your team and bills for their time. Your team still manages the work, sets the direction, and owns whether the research succeeds. With Akraya's embedded model, we also manage the program around that researcher. The researcher works inside your team and helps shape the research strategy, while our PMO manages delivery, resourcing, and service levels. You get a dedicated researcher plus a managed program behind them, and Akraya stays accountable for the work.
How fast can an embedded researcher ramp up?
We match the researcher to your type of product and the work they will be doing, so they can start contributing quickly. The bigger advantage comes over time. Because the same researcher stays with your team, they keep building knowledge of your product, users, stakeholders, and previous studies, so each new study starts with more context instead of another ramp-up.
Can you embed a whole team across several product groups?
Yes. For larger organizations, we can place multiple researchers across different product teams and manage them through one program-management office. That gives each team the research support it needs while keeping the standards, management, and accountability consistent across the program.
Do we keep control of the research direction?
Yes. Your team still owns the priorities, the product questions, and the decisions. The embedded researcher works with you to plan and run the research, while Akraya takes on the execution and day-to-day management behind it. You stay in control of where the research goes without having to manage every part of how it gets done.
How is an embedded team different from Akraya's rapid research?
Rapid research is built for one focused question. Akraya scopes, runs, and delivers the study in one to three weeks, and the engagement ends when the findings are delivered. An embedded researcher stays with your team across many studies and builds product knowledge over time. You can use both models under Akraya and move between them as your research needs change.
How do you protect security when the researcher works inside our systems?
The researcher can work inside your own tools and environment so sensitive data stays with you. We can also run research on unreleased products as an unnamed third party, so participants do not learn which company or product is behind the study. Akraya also carries the security documentation, insurance, and participant-payment processes enterprise procurement teams typically review before research begins.