Why Is My Response Rate Low?

If you're seeing a small number of responses relative to the size of your team, there are usually three 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 · Tool websites are missing or misspelled

The extension only fires on tools whose website domains match exactly. If you've added Claude with website claude.ai but a user is on claude.com (or a regional variant), no pulse will fire there.

Quick test: For each of your AI tools, open the AI Tool detail panel and check the websites list. Compare against the actual URL bar when your team is using the tool.

Fix:

Add missing domains to each tool's websites list (comma-separated)
Common gotchas: chat.openai.com vs chatgpt.com; subdomains like app.notion.so vs the marketing site notion.so; regional Google domains for Gemini

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 · Cadence is too restrictive

If you've configured the pulse to fire weekly or monthly rather than daily, your response volume will naturally be lower. That's fine if it's intentional — the platform's estimated hours extrapolation handles cadence — but it does mean you'll see fewer raw responses.

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

Fix: Increase to daily if you want more granular data and your team can tolerate the prompts.

What's a "good" response rate?

For a daily-cadence pulse with a well-rolled-out extension:

>50% is excellent — your team is engaged
30–50% is normal — most healthy programs
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:

Communicate why — people respond more when they understand the program saves them time-wasting tools, not just measures performance
Make it private — make sure team members understand their individual data is only seen by themselves and the leaders of their group, not aired in town halls
Lead by example — if executives respond, others follow

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