By Kathryn Korostoff, President, Research Rockstar Training & Staffing

Market Research and Inisghts teams have an ever-expanding list of ways to apply AI—honestly, it can be hard to keep up. Some teams are achieving quick wins by optimizing individual productivity. Others are pushing boundaries with experimental approaches that aim to fundamentally transform research methods. And many are navigating the vast middle ground—testing tools for study design, data collection, and reporting that improve efficiency and data quality.

Wherever we fall on that continuum, here’s the good news: there are plenty of practical, real-world AI use cases. This isn’t about chasing shiny objects. It’s about testing, learning, and applying processes and tools with discernment.

Webinar Series Recap: Insights Association Leads the Charge

In May, the Insights Association hosted a four-part webinar series, AI for Insights: How & When to Work with the Leading Platforms. Designed to offer a practical, current-state view of leading AI tools (LLMs), the series featured live demonstrations, side-by-side comparisons, and honest evaluations of strengths and limitations.

The four sessions each featured a spotlight on a specific set of platforms:

• Scott Swigart of Shapiro + Raj opened the series by demonstrating, in real-time, the unique strengths of Gemini and Claude. He focused on practical applications and shared a valuable reminder: Claude doesn’t train off your data by default, while Gemini’s data use varies depending on access method (Workspace, API, etc.).
• Joe Galarneau of Utilityze compared Llama, DeepSeek, and Mistral, offering a scorecard that rated them on differentiators, use cases, model power, and expected longevity. Joe’s deep evaluations were both pragmatic and provocative. Honestly? Mistral is now next on my list to try.
• Ray Poynter of NewMR brought his typical clarity and candor to the ChatGPT session, focusing on data cleaning, analysis, and summarization—among other real-world tasks. Ray’s no-fluff style, backed by examples, brought home how AI is already helping us get more value from our data. (Check out his latest AI content on NewMR).
• Romani Patel of Microsoft wrapped the series with a look at Copilot and future AI trends. A Senior Manager leading AI initiatives for market research, her Copilot examples showed how useful—and achievable—AI gains are for researchers.

Each speaker used live demos and tangible examples—not hypothetical futures. It was a powerful reminder that AI isn’t just coming to insights work—it’s already here.

I was fortunate to co-moderate the series with Jeff McKenna, a data scientist at Leger, who has been one of my favorite go-to research experts for years. An early AI enthusiast, Jeff gave me my first real glimpse of AI in action nearly three years ago—generating code for a MaxDiff questionnaire on the spot! That moment left a lasting impression, and I was grateful to have his enthusiasm and hands-on reality checks as a co-moderator.

Finding Our Next Step: Choose Use Cases, Then Tools

Let’s face it: evaluating AI options and tools takes time, and the sheer number of platforms can feel overwhelming. But the real first step isn’t choosing tools—it’s identifying the use cases that are most relevant. Are we, as research and insights professionals, focused on personal productivity? Improving study design? Enhancing data collection? Accelerating reporting?

Depending on a given team’s priorities and resources, different strategies will apply. Many research and insights teams begin with productivity boosters, while others start by scaling up how they analyze and present findings. There’s no one-size-fits-all path—the range of use cases and the pace of AI adoption across teams varies widely (and wildly!)—but there are plenty of solid starting points.

So, what use cases can we consider? Even in a 4-part webinar series, our experts could not possibly cover all of them. Here is a list of 26 (and growing) I have been maintaining:

AI Tools for Personal Productivity

1. Meeting notes & action plans

2. Editing/grammar checking

3. Audio/video transcription

4. Brainstorming assistance

5. Calendar & task management

6. Writing production (e.g., emails, documentation, articles)

AI That Assists in Designing Studies or Preparing for Fieldwork

7. Methodology plans

8. Sampling plans

9. Questionnaire, screener, or discussion guide design

10. Incentive optimization using recommender systems

AI Applications for Data Collection

11. Chatbots for conducting surveys and interviews

12. Personalized survey experiences (based on behavior or segment)

13. Adaptive, dynamic designs for conjoint, pricing, and other multivariate studies

14. Automated survey translation and localization

15. AI-enhanced focus group/IDI platforms

16. Anomaly detection and outlier identification

17. Emotion analysis using facial recognition

AI-Driven Tools for Synthesis and Deliverables

18. Thematic analysis of social media or unstructured data

19. Sentiment analysis of social media or unstructured data

20. Data exploration and pattern detection

21. Data-to-text for auto-generating insights narratives

22. Data visualization

23. Qual & quant research report generation

24. Predictive modeling and forecasting

25. Insights data integration and harmonization across sources

26. Interactive dashboards with AI-powered insights and recommendations

Once we’ve clarified our goals and prioritized relevant use cases, selecting and testing the right tools becomes a lot more practical.

Whether we start small or aim for sweeping innovation, thanks to the practical demonstrations and insider tips from Scott Swigart, Joe Galarneau, Ray Poynter, and Romani Patel, we now have a clearer picture of what’s possible—both for short-term wins and for long-term transformation.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kathryn Korostoff is President and Lead Instructor at Research Rockstar Training & Staffing.  With a team of 6 expert instructors and 150+ fully vetted research contractors, Kathryn works to advance market research and insights excellence. She wants everyone to be a Research Rockstar! She is a hands-on market researcher and has personally conducted over 600 primary research projects. Kathryn is also a past President of the Insights Association New England Chapter, and a former national board member. She can be reached at KKorostoff@ResearchRockstar.com.