and demand uncertainty ’, the quarterly journal of economics, 114, 1, pp. 185 - 227, 2019 ; d. altig, j. m. barrero, n. bloom, s. davis, b. meyer and n. parker, ‘ surveying business uncertainty ’, journal of econometrics, 231, 1, pp. 282 - 303, 2022. for instance, the interpretation of firms about the ecb ’ s inflation target, see m. bottone, a. tagliabracci and g. zevi, ‘ inflation expectations and the ecb ’ s perceived inflation objective : novel evidence from firm - level data ’, journal of monetary economics, 129, s15 - s34, 2022. m. bottone, e. mattevi, l. modugno, m. mongardini and a. neri, ‘ indebitamento e liquidita delle imprese nel 2020 : evidenze su microdati di impresa ’, ( only in italian ), banca d ’ italia, covid - 19 notes, 21 december 2021. i. balteanu, m. bottone, a. fernandez - cerezo, d. ioannou, a. kutten, m. mancini and r. morris, ‘ european firms facing geopolitical risk : evidence from recent eurosystem surveys ’, voxeu, 18 may 2024 ; l. panon, l. lebastard, m. mancini, a. borin, p. caka, g. cariola, d. essers, e. gentili, a. linarello, t. padellini, f. requena and j. timini, ‘ inputs in distress : geoeconomic fragmentation and firms ’ sourcing ’, banca d ’ italia, questioni di economia e finanza ( occasional papers ), 861, 2024. however, conducting traditional business surveys based on sound methodologies such as probability sampling is becoming increasingly challenging and costly for central banks. examples of key challenges include the rise in both the item non - response rate − which has tripled to 15 per cent for investment plans since the inception of our invind survey − and the unit non - response rate, especially among firms that perceive a high response burden. 13 moreover, the growing awareness and concerns about data privacy and time constraints14 not only

rizzi and f. zanichelli, ‘ mind the mode : lessons from a web survey on household finances ’, banca d ’ italia, questioni di economia e finanza ( occasional papers ), 437, 2018 ; a. neri and f. zanichelli, ‘ principali risultati dell ’ indagine straordinaria sulle famiglie italiane nel 2020 ’ ( only in italian ), banca d ’ italia, covid - 19 notes, 26 june 2020 ; r. cummings and e. tedeschi, ‘ the effect of online interviews on the university of michigan survey of consumer sentiment ’, briefing books, october, 2024. a second way to improve traditional surveys is to use natural language processing and text analysis to quickly extract signals from text. these methods are already widely used in the literature to extract signals on economic variables, such as industrial production from text analysis of survey responses from manufacturing firms, 16 or economic activity from earnings calls, 17 which are an important channel of communication between market participants and the management of publicly traded companies. in light of these experiences, we might further explore the possibility of extracting information from informal interviews with managers that are traditionally more difficult to interpret, moving away from traditional surveys in which respondents read and select the most appropriate answer. third, even in the conduct of more formal interviews, surveys could be facilitated by the use of ai - assisted interviewing, which integrates advanced artificial intelligence into the interviewing process, particularly as a tool to assist interviewers in improving data quality ( minimizing human error and bias ). such a development would enable more dynamic and responsive interviews that adapt in real time to respondents ’ answers, automating routine tasks, providing a more engaging and personalized interaction, possibly leading to higher response rates and greater satisfaction with participation. fourth, machine learning models could replace current methods for imputing missing data in business surveys, as they are able to capture the complexity in data structures, recognizing non - linear relationships and allowing a large number of predictors to be included. 18 machine learning techniques could also help to detect outliers in surveys, with algorithms that compare responses within the same questionnaire and across waves. last but not least, llms could revolutionize traditional data collection methods. for example, instead of sending out questionnaires, we could provide a programme that firms could adapt to their own databases using llms, allowing them to extract