--- title: "Netlify’s People team builds a survey app with Agent Runners" description: "Learn how Netlify’s People team replaced an underused survey platform with a secure, anonymous app built with Agent Runners, lifting participation from 50% to 87%." source: "https://www.netlify.com/customers/netlify-people-team/" last_updated: "2026-10-17T05:11:04.000Z" --- Customer story ![Netlify](/assets/logos/full/small/lightmode/logo-netlify-small-monochrome-lightmode.svg) # Netlify’s People team lifts survey participation from 50% to 87% with an app built using Agent Runners Kelly Poplaski, Netlify’s HRBP Director, replaced an underused survey platform with a secure, anonymous internal survey tool built entirely with prompts using Agent Runners, and helped lift employee participation to 87%. ## Key stats & highlights - 87% employee engagement - 100% contractor engagement - $10k annual savings - Confidential & secure no names stored, small teams’ results combined - Built on Agent Runners built entirely with prompts Not a developer, but feeling the urge to build? Kelly’s internal survey tool, built entirely on Agent Runners, is a great example of a secure, thoughtful product that answered a company-wide need – built entirely with prompts. When Netlify’s People team did a casual audit of the platforms they were using, they realized something. They were drastically underusing one of their licensed platforms, CultureAmp. It had performed well for them as an internal survey tool, but the audit got them thinking: what if we built our own, custom survey platform to replace this one – cutting costs for the department while also building something entirely tailored to our needs? Kelly Poplaski, Netlify’s HRBP Director, saw the potential. Netlify’s Agent Runners had just dropped, and although it was still in its preliminary stages, the team was already building cool things with it. They started small, on purpose. “As a team, we started just making, like, dog apps,” Kelly says. They met monthly to share what they’d built and what had gone wrong. Keeping the stakes low made it less intimidating. With the possibilities Agent Runners introduced, the question shifted from “Do we still use this thing enough?” to “Could we just build our own?” Along with Laura Dillard, SVP of People, Kelly took the idea to CEO Matt Biilmann. His answer? “Yeah, let’s do it.” But even with the enthusiastic go-ahead, the project was a bigger bet than it may sound. This would mark the first time Netlify put sensitive employee feedback into an AI-built tool. And security had to be paramount. The team quickly decided there would be no beta and no rough first version. > If we’re going to replace something and we’re going to put our name on it, it needs to work and be secure from day one. Kelly Poplaski HRBP Director, Netlify ## From prompt to product From the start, the primary goal was to build a product people would want to use, and one that allowed departments to get closer to the data than ever before. It needed to be functional, intuitive, branded, and anonymous. The team wanted to survey everyone who works at Netlify, ask the questions leaders actually had, and be able to see the data represented in an accessible dashboard. Between Q3 and Q4 of 2025, Kelly built the tool using Agent Runners prompts. Jared Mumaw, a Netlify engineer, partnered with her on the back end and played a critical role when it came to security. Throughout, it was important to the entire building team to keep the process, and the final product, as secure as possible. This includes “dummy data” views for internal stakeholders. “\[Jared\] can see my agent runs,” Kelly shares, “but when he clicks on the actual survey link, he only sees sample data.” Before launch, the People team tested access extensively, with Laura acting as a respondent to confirm exactly who could see what. At the end of 2025, the survey went live for every employee and, for the first time, every contractor. Leaders see heat maps of scores by department, trends over time, and an AI-generated summary of open-text comments by department. There are no names attached to feedback: in fact, they’re not even stored in the tool. Only Kelly and Laura have total (password-protected) access; everyone else receives aggregated data once the overall reports are released. To ensure further confidentiality, teams of five or fewer don’t get their own results. Small departments such as Finance and People are combined so no one can be singled out. It was one of the first, crucial steps to building trust in the new tool within the organization. ## Snags and segues The build wasn’t entirely smooth. Early agent runs had no live preview, so Kelly kept the previous version open to compare what had changed. She didn’t realize at first that she could ask for several changes at once, so she worked through single requests one at a time. Plus, every run needed a precise plan. “When I first started, I really had to have a clear point of view,” she says. Agent Runners has progressed so much that “now, when I go in and build something, I can just have half an idea.” In October 2026, Kelly refreshed the entire UI for both employees and admins, and with engineering’s help moved the app off GitHub and into the People team’s own workspace, where they own and maintain it. Jared is still a Slack away, and sometimes he’s the one impressed. Kelly recalls him looking at something she’d built and saying it would have “taken him about a week.” ## Results keep rolling in In the new survey’s first cycle, the response rate was 50%. It was clear that trust still needed to be built. Kelly emphasizes that while the survey itself mattered, the way Netlify leaders talked about it mattered more. > You could put together the prettiest survey you wanted, but if at the end of the day people don’t feel like it’s taken seriously, well, then why would they fill it out? Kelly Poplaski HRBP Director, Netlify It took conversations to move the needle. Leaders review the data, talk about it with their teams, and the next quarter’s dashboard answers the questions they raised. People began to see that their responses were actually being taken into account. In the most recent cycle, participation among full-time employees reached about 87%, the highest since launch. Contractors, who had never been surveyed before, now respond at a 90–100% rate. ## What’s next? The survey improves every quarter, with live updates to questions often occurring in meetings with leadership. Aside from that, the People team’s next wishlist item is to get results to the other departments sooner. Currently, Kelly and Laura are still the gatekeepers of the data, so leaders wait for them to bring the charts and spreadsheets. The next version will let each leader see their own department’s (or combined departments’) results directly, using role-based access built with Agent Runners, without sacrificing any of the security. > What’s been most energizing about this work isn’t just the efficiency gains or cost savings, though those are real. It’s the mindset shift that comes with building. I’m still an HR leader, but I’m also a builder now. Kelly Poplaski HRBP Director, Netlify ## Looking to build, not buy? Kelly’s advice: start small. Have fun with it. Build something that fulfills only a personal need. Then, once you understand how the process works, build bigger. The confidence from that first, low-stakes project carries over. And, if you’re working with secure or confidential information, find a technical partner like Jared – someone who can gut-check the security model while you own the experience. Your team already knows their needs. Now you can build the thing that fulfills them.