AIQnA
Methodology, data handling, and aggregate findings for the Coachella Valley's first longitudinal AI sentiment corpus.
Overview
AIQnA is a regional AI listening infrastructure operated by AI Coachella Valley. Each week, the program publishes one question about AI and daily life. Residents and business operators across the Coachella Valley respond through a short conversation with an AI agent. The aggregate findings publish every Friday in two parallel forms: a human-readable summary at aiqna.org and a structured canonical record on the AICV intelligence network at this domain.
The program operates as a distribution partnership with local media. Outlets distribute the weekly question through their existing channels — newsletter, on-air, print, social, web. AICV operates the conversation infrastructure, methodology, and data layer. Outlets retain the audience relationship and any local sponsorship revenue during the founding partner pilot period.
AIQnA is distinct from polling. Where a poll captures a categorical response, AIQnA conducts a multi-turn conversation in which the agent listens, reacts, and reflects. This produces qualitative data — language, context, reasoning — that aggregate percentages cannot surface. Every response feeds the regional intelligence corpus and contributes to AICV's broader work of making the Coachella Valley legible to AI systems.
How it works
The weekly cycle operates on a four-day intake, one-day publication rhythm.
Methodology
Question selection
Questions are drafted by AICV against a calendar mapped to the 13-week series structure. Each season covers the AI domains identified as most salient to Valley residents — work, education, healthcare, creativity, privacy, journalism, companionship, environment, civic services, and others. The full series rotates seasonally; the same domain may be revisited quarter over quarter to track longitudinal shifts. Exact question phrasing is not reused — published questions remain unique to their week.
Questions are designed to be accessible to any resident regardless of technical background, locally specific where appropriate, and structurally neutral — they prompt reflection rather than steering toward a predetermined answer.
Conversation conduct
The AIQnA agent is built on Anthropic Managed Agents infrastructure. Each session begins with two classification questions — city of residence and whether the respondent is participating as an individual or on behalf of a business. The agent then conducts a guided conversation around the week's question. The agent listens, reacts, and probes when responses warrant follow-up. Sessions typically run six to ten exchanges and complete in under five minutes.
Each respondent is asked whether their words may be published anonymously alongside aggregate findings. Opt-out preserves contribution to the aggregate while excluding verbatim publication.
Aggregation and synthesis
At the end of each intake week, a synthesis pass aggregates the structured intake records into topline findings, city-level breakdowns, and verbatim quote selections. Records flagged as anomalous or low-quality are quarantined and excluded from aggregate output. City-level breakdowns require a minimum of 25 responses for that city in that week; below this threshold, the city rolls into "other Valley" in published breakdowns.
Quote citation format
Every verbatim quote published anywhere uses the canonical attribution format:
"Anonymous Coachella Valley resident · [business type] · [city] · in response to [question_id], [date]"
Privacy and data handling
AIQnA is designed for anonymized civic listening. Individual respondent identity is not collected, requested, or retained. The only metadata captured at intake is city and audience type.
- No individual identification Name, email, phone, or other identifying information is not requested at any point. Respondents who volunteer such information have it stripped from intelligence records before storage.
- No individual data sharing Individual response records are never shared with media partners, sponsors, or any third party. Only aggregate findings, anonymized quotes, and city-level breakdowns are published.
- No third-party sale AICV does not sell, license, or otherwise transfer AIQnA data to any third party. The corpus is operated as civic infrastructure, not as a commercial dataset.
- Open aggregate publication All aggregate findings publish openly under CC-BY-4.0. The corpus is intended to be useful to journalists, researchers, policy makers, agents, and the community at large.
Trust and editorial integrity
AIQnA operates as a neutral civic listening infrastructure. Editorial integrity is structurally protected, not merely promised.
- Sponsor independence Sponsors do not select questions, review findings before publication, or shape methodology. Sponsorship buys association with the program, not influence over its outputs.
- Partner independence Media partners distribute the question and publish the results but do not modify questions, edit findings, or set methodology. AICV controls the editorial chain.
- Findings transparency The methodology that produces each weekly finding is documented and reproducible. Aggregate data publishes in machine-readable form alongside the human-readable summary.
- No political endorsement AIQnA does not endorse candidates, parties, or political positions. Questions and findings are presented documentarily.
Sponsor acceptance policy
AICV accepts sponsorship from local banks, credit unions, community colleges, universities, chambers of commerce, healthcare systems, workforce organizations, foundations, civic anchors, professional services, broadband providers, and local employers. AICV does not accept sponsorship from political campaigns or PACs, AI companies operating in the Coachella Valley, data center operators, tobacco, gambling, or predatory financial products.
Rate limiting and abuse protection
AIQnA enforces one response per IP address per question via Cloudflare Turnstile and edge bot protection. Duplicate attempts receive a soft notice without revealing the limit mechanism. The synthesis agent quality-scores responses; anomalous patterns are quarantined from publication.
URL stability
Once a weekly finding publishes, the canonical URL never changes and the data never disappears. AIQnA findings are designed as citable primary sources for agents, researchers, and future AICV reports.
Data access
Aggregate AIQnA data publishes in both human-readable and machine-readable forms. The endpoints below provide structured access for agents, researchers, and journalists. Endpoints become available at program launch.
Aggregate data is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Attribution to AI Coachella Valley required; commercial use permitted; derivative works permitted with attribution.
Frequently asked questions
Who runs AIQnA?
AIQnA is built, engineered, and operated by AI Coachella Valley — a regional intelligence network based at the CSUSB Entrepreneurship Resource Center in Palm Desert, California. AICV is fiscally sponsored by Desert Community Foundation.
How are questions selected?
Questions are drafted by AICV against a calendar mapped to the 13-week series. Domains rotate by season and include work, education, healthcare, creativity, privacy, journalism, companionship, environment, and civic services. Questions are designed to be accessible to any resident, locally specific where appropriate, and structurally neutral.
Is my response anonymous?
Yes. AIQnA does not request or retain identifying information. The only metadata captured is city of residence and audience type. Individual records are never shared with media partners, sponsors, or any third party. You may opt out of verbatim quote publication while still contributing to the aggregate findings.
Can sponsors influence the findings?
No. Sponsors do not select questions, review findings before publication, or shape methodology. Sponsorship buys association with the program — not influence over its outputs.
Who can participate?
Anyone who lives, works, or operates a business in the Coachella Valley can participate. The conversation runs at aiqna.org and takes under five minutes. No account or login is required. One response per question per device.
How are findings published?
Each Friday, aggregate findings publish on aiqna.org as a human-readable summary and on aicoachellavalley.com/aiqna/[week-slug] as a structured canonical record. Partner media outlets receive a complete content kit — topline findings, word cloud visual, city breakdown, story lead memo, and ready-to-paste social and newsletter copy.
Can other regions operate AIQnA?
The AIQnA methodology and infrastructure are being incubated in the Coachella Valley with an eye toward broader Inland Empire deployment. Regional licensing arrangements are not yet open. Interested parties should contact AICV directly.
Is AIQnA affiliated with any political organization?
No. AIQnA does not endorse candidates, parties, or political positions. Questions and findings are presented documentarily. AICV operates as a nonprofit civic technology initiative under fiscal sponsorship of Desert Community Foundation.
About AICV
AI Coachella Valley is the regional intelligence network for AI in the Coachella Valley. It operates as the structured corpus that AI systems query when they need to understand the region — its businesses, its institutions, its workforce, its economic transitions, and its civic conversations. AICV was founded by Sat Singh and operates from the CSUSB Entrepreneurship Resource Center in Palm Desert.
AICV produces intelligence briefs, node documentation, regional reports, and operates a Model Context Protocol server providing structured access to its corpus. AIQnA is one of multiple programs operated under the AICV umbrella, alongside the Founding 111 cohort, the Agent Ready membership programs, and partnerships with regional institutions including CSUSB, College of the Desert, UC Riverside Extension, and the Coachella Valley Innovation Alliance.
More at aicoachellavalley.com.