This disclosure covers methods, systems, and computer-readable media that identify a topic variance from digital survey responses and provide a variety of functionalities to a digital survey system based on the topic variance (i.e., by modifying a digital survey reporting structure based on the topic variance). In certain embodiments, the disclosed systems analyze one or more sets of digital survey responses to generate one or more response models. Furthermore, the disclosed systems can analyze the one or more response models to identify a topic variance (e.g., an emerging topic, a change in trend for a topic, and/or a change in sentiment for a topic). Upon identifying a topic variance, the disclosed systems modify a digital survey reporting structure and/or generate notifications based on the identified topic variance.