By Crispin Beale, CEO, Insight 250
As we look to wrap up 2025, it’s a time when many reflect on the year coming to a close and what they are thankful for. However, it’s been a year of challenges and concerns, specifically around the accelerated emergence and impact of AI. Yet, there are sure to be positives from the technology advancements despite the disruption it’s creating. True to form, I went to insight and market research experts around the world to ask:
“Artificial intelligence (AI) has created a whirlwind across the market research and insight industry, resulting in much disruption and concern. However, what early-stage aspects and applications of AI are you thankful for as 2025 closes?"
So, here’s a special seasonal “gift” in the form of a bumper review from a cornucopia of industry professionals, from all around the globe, on the positive dimensions AI is bringing to the market research and insight industry. Enjoy!
Danny Russell, Chief Customer Officer, IDX, Owner, DRC, UK
“As we all know, we have a lot to be thankful for when it comes to AI; and we also have some (as yet not fully understood) concerns, however, tis the season to be positive. I, therefore, thank AI for providing us with BETTER and FASTER survey and questionnaire design. What used to take days/weeks now takes hours – the drafting of questions, generating various concepts/stimulus statements to be tested and localising surveys into multiple markets. So much easier – what a joy!”
Sharmila Das, Chairwoman, Purple Audacity, India
"Artificial intelligence (AI) has created a whirlwind across the market research and insight industry, resulting in much disruption and concern. However, what early-stage aspects and applications of AI are you thankful for as 2025 closes? 2025, as per anticipation, was the year of reconciliation. The Clients openly stated their appreciation for digital-first agencies, and agencies overcame their awe and reluctance with respect to AI use. Efficiency and time saving became the noteworthy benefits of AI and the continuous upgradation of tools provided a positive dynamism to the industry."
Sir Martin Sorrell, Founder & Executive Chairman, S4 Capital plc, UK
“Visualisation, copywriting and hyper-personalisation at scale. The first has collapsed the time taken and cost of digital content. Ads take days and hundreds of thousands to produce and make, rather than months and millions. Hyper-personalisation or “Netflix on steroids” produces literally millions of content permutations to reach consumers individually. Algorithmic media planning and buying is coming soon, with PMax and Advantage+ in the vanguard.”
Mark Langsfeld, Co-chair, Insight250 & CEO, mTab.ai, USA
“Ai is providing unprecedented understanding of markets, consumers and competitors through the integration and analysis of fragmented data splintered across the organization, from surveys and social media to telemetry and third-party sources. Beyond this, our clients across a spectrum of industries, including entertainment, automotive, consumer goods and food and beverage, are getting predictive insights and prescriptive actions to move faster, smarter and more decisively than ever before. So, there is a tremendous amount to be thankful for with AI if you're courageous enough to embrace it.”
Justine Clements, Insights Manager, Samsung Electronics, Australia
“ What excites me most in 2025 is the integration of AI tools that bring real value to traditional processes such as conversational AI within surveys, making them more than just data collection and actual listening tools. By blending qualitative depth in quantitative design, we’re moving from predetermined answers to dynamic, context-aware dialogue. It's getting better every day, teaching us to scale empathy and nuance, both of which insights have often struggled to do at speed.”
Mary Ann Packo, CEO, Ipsos North America, USA
“We are committed to providing clients with a deep understanding of Society, Markets and People, and we are thankful for how AI enables us to uncover never-before-seen nuance across vast amounts of data so that our clients can be even more confident in the decisions they make, and make them faster than ever before. With our commitment to data quality, we have advanced tools to detect fraud from AI to provide clients with the comfort that our data remains of the highest integrity in the market. So while AI creates a question of “what is real,” we are thankful to have the talent, tools and processes required to deliver truth.“
Herbert Hoeckel, Esomar Council Member, CEO of moweb research / AMR, Germany
“As AI continues to create a whirlwind of disruption across the insights industry, I find myself especially thankful that the papers at Esomar Congress in Prague keep bringing human intelligence into the frame. There is a growing recognition that AI does not and should not operate alone - it works best hand in hand with human judgement, creativity and empathy.
As market researchers, we are uniquely positioned to feed this system with what it cannot generate by itself: real people’s opinions, lived experiences and nuanced context. Our role is to bring genuine human intelligence into the AI mix, to question, interpret and challenge what the machines produce. The combination of advanced technology grounded in real human insight is what makes me optimistic as 2025 comes to a close.”
Wim Hamaekers, Co-founder, One Inch Whale, Belgium
“As 2025 comes to a close, I’m genuinely thankful for the early-stage AI applications that have already strengthened the craft of research. AI copilots that support textual analysis, from open-ended survey responses to digital qual interviews, have made our work faster, more efficient and, in many cases, more accurate. The same applies to copilots embedded in research tools and platforms, which help us draft summaries, key learnings and reports. Yet, they only create real value when researchers remain hands-on with the data.
“I’m also grateful for the rise of AI-assisted moderation within qual, quant and community platforms. While it can’t replace the true depth of human-led qualitative research, it already enriches quantitative studies with additional layers of depth, and it opens the door to addressing research questions that benefit from a lighter qualitative touch.”
Prof Paul Baines, Professor of Political Marketing, University of Leicester, UK
"I’m thankful for generative AI when doing desk research because when used as an addition to your own formal research and thinking, it can save an awful lot of time. But it’s not always right or optimised so together with a detailed bit of prompt engineering, I use the side-by-side function in lmarena.ai to strengthen the output.
Jean-Marc Léger, President / CEO, Léger, Canada
“The greatest surprise of 2025 has come from my young employees under 30. They have become true and natural experts in using ChatGPT and in creating original, innovative solutions. They are the real leaders of innovation at Léger. For them, ChatGPT is more than a personal assistant — it’s a trusted partner and creative companion on a professional level, but also on a personal level. It's fascinating, but also frightening.”
Fiona Blades, President & Chief Experience Officer, MESH Experience, UK
“I am thankful for brainstorming with AI and for the 'I.’ I love the intelligence! Often, AI tools see things that I don’t. And I like the honest, unprovoked advice. Earlier this year, I was preparing an award submission and wanted to see how to improve it. Claude responded, “My recommendation would be to wait another 12-18 months to gather more substantial data and quantified outcomes.” Hmmm! That was a bit of a surprise!! Claude was right (although I hadn’t wanted to admit this to myself). I decided to enter another category, which has been more successful!”
Marco Baldocchi, Founder & CEO, Emotivae Inc., USA
“I’m thankful that AI has finally stopped pretending to be rational. The real revolution isn’t in data processing, it’s in emotional decoding. We’ve spent decades teaching machines to think, but only now are they starting to feel, or at least to recognize the traces of human feeling. Early affective AI, emotion recognition, and implicit response modeling are tearing down the illusion that logic drives decisions. It doesn’t. Emotion does. And as AI begins to capture that invisible layer, we’re finally seeing technology evolve from imitation to intuition. That’s something truly worth celebrating.”
Urpi Torrado, CEO Datum, Peru
“AI has taken over repetitive and time-consuming tasks, especially the coding of open-ended questions and the summarizing of large datasets. These are essential but often unappealing tasks for junior researchers, who now have more time to focus on analysis, storytelling, and strategic thinking. Early AI tools have boosted productivity and made research more attractive for new generations by allowing professionals to spend less time processing data and more time interpreting human behavior and creating impact—bringing back the curiosity and creativity that define the essence of our industry.”
Alex Hunt, CEO, Behaviorally, USA
“Going through findings from our most recent wave of staff feedback data, I’m most thankful for the Behaviorally team and how quickly they’ve adapted to the opportunity’s new technologies present and the resultant imperative to change the status quo. We’ve been integrating AI into Behaviorally’s product capabilities since 2022 and have released an entire platform to predict the effectiveness of packaging design using AI. This means application of this technology to research methods was nothing new for us in 2025. “What has been new for 2025 is the emphasis we’ve placed on giving the Behaviorally team access to new AI tools and then emphasizing and showcasing the degree to which we must all become familiar with them to improve and accelerate our day-to-day workflows. The impact has been amazing with success stories across nearly every function from more accurate client planning to efficient research execution – so much so that in our recent staff survey, 96% of team members reported Behaviorally as being “well-prepared” for an “AI-enabled future.” By definition, we couldn’t have seen these benefits without the availability of new technologies, but equally, without the learning culture the Behaviorally team embraces, it would all amount to nought. And for the team and their learning mindset, I am eternally thankful. In the words of one such team member, “I love working here!”
Pavi Gupta, VP Insights & Analytics, Chonabi, USA
“Believe that there are a few innovative companies who are pushing the boundaries of how to reimagine insights leveraging AI. I am convinced that human understanding will continue to play a key role in this progression. I’m grateful to so many of the amazing industry leaders for rich discussions on this topic. Especially as this is reviving the need to keep the Human at the centre with AI playing the role of augmenting us.”
Isabelle Fabry-Frémaux, Founder & CEO, ActFuture, France
"As 2025 closes, I’m thankful for the clarity that AI has brought to our industry. It has exposed what is automatable — and what is truly human. The best early applications, from linguistic harmonization to automated synthesis, have made researchers more efficient and freed us to focus on what machines still cannot do: interpret complexity, read emotions, and bring cultural context into decision-making. But the real gift of AI has been its wake-up call — reminding us that delegating without control is dangerous, and that our role is shifting from data producers to AI auditors and ethical interpreters."
Mark Ursell, EVP, QuMind by Largo.ai, UK
“I am thankful for the fact that AI has made several laborious processes that much easier. Firstly, coding, as finally AI can create sensible code frames as per a human being, saving huge amounts of time and cost in this area. Secondly, being able to script surveys, again another timely and costly pursuit, where human beings can be better utilised elsewhere.”
Melanie Courtright, Chief Strategy Officer, Sago, USA
“As 2025 wraps up, I’m most thankful for the ways AI has helped us work smarter without losing the human touch. Early applications like faster data cleaning, smarter text analysis, and better survey design have freed up time for what really matters—interpreting insights and actually engaging with people to improve their research experience. It’s exciting to see technology speed up the process while amplifying human expertise, not replacing it.”
Dr. Roland Abold, Managing Director, infratest dimap, Germany
“As 2025 closes, I’m thankful for AI’s ability to accelerate data processing, enhance predictive modeling, and automate repetitive tasks. These early applications free researchers to focus on interpretation and strategic insight. AI is becoming a partner, not a replacement.”
Dan Quirk, Quirks Media, USA
“I think the ability of AI to retrieve and synthesize material from multiple sources and then format and refine that information is a game-changer I am thankful for. It can be used with qualitative or quantitative data, which can significantly speed up analysis and even improve reliability as long as the data sources are reliable.. We have used it to create “Quirk's GPT,” which is trained exclusively on Quirk's database of 12,000+ professionally vetted, edited and curated articles. Within seconds, it can answer your marketing research and insight questions with source materials linked and cited. While not perfect yet, the time savings in researching topics is immense.”
Victoria Usher, CEO, GingerMay, UK
“Early LLM tools that can rapidly analyse consumer sentiment, content performance, and competitor positioning are helping PR and marketing teams move from guesswork to data-led narratives and storytelling. This technology has made it far easier to spot the angles and opportunities that drive standout campaigns.”
Arundati Dandapani, Founder and CEO, Generation1.ca, Canada
“This American Thanksgiving, I am grateful for the AI ecosystem powering our work across industry. For generative AI that accelerates research, synthesis, and strategic scanning, boosting our visibility and proving how discoverability now lives inside LLMs. For advanced analytics that deepen our understanding of global talent, workforce shifts, and socio-technical risks. For synthetic data that protects privacy while enabling safe modelling and governance stress tests. For AI-driven image and visual tools that streamline storytelling across our events and communities. “And for the machine-learning systems that strengthen fraud detection, bias audits, and data quality—building a more inclusive, ethical, global immigrant-centred future.”
Mariela Mociulsky, CEO & Founder, Trendsity, Argentina
“In this industry, Thanksgiving,” I’m grateful for this first harvest of experimentation with AI. We’re still planting early seeds, but we’re already seeing promising shoots: it not only saves time, it also helps us sketch out possible paths, model scenarios, and open perspectives that were hard to imagine so quickly before. But like any good harvest, it depends on the soil it grows in. AI only flourishes when we feed it with high-quality data, diverse viewpoints, and human understanding. It can amplify our work, but it needs solid roots to produce insights that truly illuminate behaviours, tensions, and opportunities.”
Thank you, everyone, for your fascinating perspectives - lots to reflect and digest! Clearly, the insights industry has a smorgasbord of opportunities at its fingertips with AI in the coming year. The trick is to choose your course and portions wisely so that we don’t consume more than we can effectively handle.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Crispin Beale - Chief Executive, Insight250, Senior Strategic Advisor, mTab; Worldwide CEO, IDX
Crispin is a marketing, data, and customer experience expert. Crispin spent over a decade on the Executive Management Board of Chime Communications as CEO of leading brands such as Opinion Leader, Brand Democracy, Facts International, and Watermelon. Before this, Crispin held senior marketing and insight roles at BT, Royal Mail Group, and Dixons. Crispin originally qualified as a chartered accountant and moved into management consultancy with Coopers & Lybrand (PwC). Crispin has been a Fellow, Board Director (and Chairman) of the MRS for nearly 20 years and UK ESOMAR Representative for over 10 years. Crispin is currently a Senior Strategic Advisor at mTab as well as worldwide CEO at IDX.