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Where will the market research industry take AI next?

Josh Baines

11 min read

Introduction

It’s increasingly looking like the future’s going to be even more automated than the present. Industries of all kinds, all over the world, are attempting to automate more and more workflows and processes in an attempt to keep up with the unstoppable march of AI.

Restech is no different. 

During the course of 2024, Cint asked customers about how technological shifts, including the rapid advancements in how AI is used, will impact market research methodologies — as well as assessing which tools they see as the most potentially transformative in Restech and beyond.

Rethinking questionnaire design

The questionnaire is one of the bedrocks of market research methodology. After all, without surveys, insights are hard to find. 

For Mike Conte, Director for Survey Solutions at Marist Poll, an academic organization run by Marist College that’s best known for comprehensive public opinion and media partnership polling, questionnaire design is an area where AI’s impact will become increasingly important in 2025 and beyond. 

Conte currently utilizes AI tools as a way of quickening the ideation process when it comes to questionnaire development. As he tells Cint, “If I know that a client has a particular question and I want to understand different ways to ask it, I’ll use tools to come up with a bunch of options. It also streamlines a lot of the research I do.”

Conte’s use of products like ChatGPT and Google Gemini isn’t just a way of saving time — he’s of the opinion that they can add value for clients, too. By providing a plethora of balanced, non-biased questions, these tools “make sure that we’re going to ultimately provide our clients with the most quality data possible.”

It’s an idea shared, in part, by Mark Wiser, Managing Partner of Wiser Insights Group. For Wiser, there’s potential value in additional automation when it comes to generating material for questionnaires. 

“I do believe that down the road, AI will evolve to the point where we’ll be able to use it very well as kind of a sounding board on things that we are planning to do,” Wiser says. 

“For example, we could use AI to evaluate a questionnaire based on the learning objectives that we have set out, to have AI weigh in on where we might be falling short or where we could enhance things further. Today, we’re not there and we are still kind of an analog company in a way, but we are keeping our ear to the ground to see how the developments with AI in particular shape up.”

Streamlined solutions

One industry expert with evident enthusiasm for the way machine learning and AI can streamline processes, especially when it comes to analyzing qualitative data for clients, is Fredrik Augustsson, Head of Analytics and Data Quality at Odyssey, a Swedish brand tech company that is working to digitalize and automate the traditional market research industry.

A tool like Gemini, he said, “Helps you summarize all the reviews, all the search patterns and all the insights that are available for specific brands. AI will have a huge impact, and we already see it when it comes to qualitative data”

Augustsson also feels that see similar results in the case of quantitative data within the industry in the long term.

A word of caution

While AI is definitely impacting the market research sector, it is still worth exercising a modicum of caution, especially when it comes to tools like ChatGPT.

Nichola Quail is a Global Market Research Strategist with 20+ years experience in human behavior, demographic trends, customer insights and shopper behavior. As Founder and CEO of Insights Exchange, she connects businesses with on-demand research specialists and partners with research technology companies to deliver data and insights for leading brands

Quail acknowledges that there’s still an element of trial and error in play when it comes to adopting products and services of this kind.

“As an industry, we’re all about representing humans and human experience and what the consumer really thinks. AI can be really helpful in making us more productive and efficient in what we do, but ultimately, if you let ChatGPT just run on its own without any human input, then it comes up with some ‘interesting’ things. So, as market researchers, we’re all about making sure that real life human responses are part of that and helping train AI in that.”

Conclusion

There’s clear conviction within the market research industry that AI isn’t going anywhere. How it will be used, and what the impact of that will be for buyers and suppliers alike remains to be seen. 

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