Why Is My Response Rate Low?

If you're seeing a small number of responses relative to the size of your team, there are four usual causes, in roughly this order of likelihood.

1 · The Chrome extension isn't installed widely enough

This is by far the most common cause. The extension is what shows pulses; without it, no data ever reaches us.

Quick test: Ask three random people on your team if they have The GAiGE extension installed and pinned to their browser toolbar. If the answer is "what extension?", you've found it.

Fix:

Send (or re-send) the install email to your whole team. There's a template in Rolling out the extension to your team.
For larger orgs, push the extension via Google Workspace or your MDM as a force-installed app. Same article has the manifest details.
Pin it for users by default if your IT setup allows.

2 · People have the extension, but page pulses are off

The close second, and the one that hides best, because from your side of the platform it looks identical to a healthy rollout: extension installed, user signed in, pulses coming due on schedule.

Placing a pulse on the page someone is working on needs broad site access, which Chrome treats as optional. Each person grants it themselves from the extension popup (Enable page pulses). No admin console, force-install or MDM policy can grant it on their behalf. Without it the extension still knows what's due and still lists it, but only inside its own toolbar popup, behind an amber "Page pulses are off" banner. Very few people open a toolbar popup unprompted, so those pulses sit there unanswered.

Quick test: ask three people to click the G icon and read out what's at the top of the popup. An amber "Page pulses are off" banner is your answer.

Fix:

Send a short note asking people to open the extension and press Enable page pulses, saying plainly what it's for: it's what lets a pulse appear while they work
If Chrome suppressed the prompt for someone, the same banner has a Turn it on manually link with the steps
Add the step to your onboarding note for new starters, alongside install and sign-in

Tool website lists are worth a mention here because they used to matter and no longer do. Delivery doesn't compare any address against your tools' domains, so a missing or misspelled domain isn't why your response rate is low.

3 · Pulse is paused

Pulses can be paused at the template level (e.g. you may have only activated some of the three default templates).

Quick test: Go to Pulses in the nav. The standard "AI Pulse" should show as active. If it's paused, no pulses will fire. For any tool, for anyone.

Fix:

Click the pulse, click Activate

4 · The cadence is lower than you think

The AI Pulse ships at three times a week per assigned tool, the AI Review fortnightly, the AI Capability Check monthly. If someone has changed those, or you're measuring against a daily expectation, the raw count looks thin even when everyone is answering. The estimated hours extrapolation accounts for cadence, so the headline numbers stay right; only the response count moves.

Fires are also held inside working hours (Monday to Friday, 9:30am to 4pm by default) and spaced at least 30 minutes apart, and a scheduled fire nobody saw is dropped after 24 hours rather than queued. A team on leave produces a gap, not a backlog.

Quick test: Pulses page → click the pulse → check the cadence setting.

Fix: raise the frequency if you want more granular data and your team can tolerate the prompts.

What's a "good" response rate?

For the AI Pulse at its default cadence, with the extension rolled out and page pulses on:

>50% is excellent. Your team is engaged
30–50% is normal. Most healthy programmes
15–30% is workable but worth investigating
<15% suggests one of the issues above

The platform handles low response rates gracefully (the estimated hours and ROI numbers extrapolate intelligently), but data is always more reliable with more responses.

Helping people respond

A few things that help once the extension is installed and page pulses are on:

Say what the answers change. People answer when they can see the point. A pulse is how a tool that wastes their time gets dropped, so it's their say in what they're asked to use rather than a measure of how they're performing.
Say plainly that it's anonymous. Reports show averages, totals, trends and comments with no name attached, and a group's results only appear once at least five people in it have answered. There's no per-person view and no name column in the export. Who sees my answers? is written for your team to read directly.
Lead by example. If executives respond, others follow.

Related: Installing the Chrome extension · Rolling out the extension to your team · Setting pulse cadence