Can this shift save the insights industry in the age of AI?

Is it enough for insights to be the voice of the consumer? Not according to Nick Rich, Fellow of the Market Research Society, Chair of its Client Conference and co-founder of Growth Constructors. Nick reveals how the industry can avoid potential irrelevancy, instead positioning itself as indispensable. 

After a half-decade of disruption, every company has been cutting costs and raising prices to counter pressured sales. And consumers are squeaking. Now more than ever, new organic growth needs to be found in creative, evidence-led ways, but most businesses struggle to find it, let alone unlock it. 

Here’s what frustrates and excites me equally: every company already holds the key to successful growth; they just aren’t turning it. Insight teams are often sitting on all the relevant financial and consumer information they need to help their organisation survive in declining markets, to break new ones, and align teams. 

“Insight teams are often sitting on all the relevant financial and consumer information they need to help their organisation survive in declining markets, to break new ones, and align teams.”

Unlocking growth that’s been hiding in plain sight

Looking beyond silos to the category level, you can suddenly uncover a 30,000-foot view of your potential growth pathway and how to avoid dead ends. Match that with an understanding of category dynamics, competition intensity and your funnel strongholds, and it becomes clear how to win and, as importantly, how not to lose. 

But this requires insights teams to rethink their purpose and positioning, shifting from a service to leadership mindset – from collating, synthesing and turning data into clear direction to leading the CMO and commercial functions to a singular understanding of where growth is possible and probable. Insight teams have to be focusing as much on value creation as they have on supporting commercial processes through testing and tracking. In the age of AI, that switch to being deeply commercially-focused is not only valuable, it’s vital. 

The 3 levers of next-gen insight 

For some time, our role has been positioned as the voice of the customer but if we maintain only that, we’re heading towards irrelevancy. It’s a dangerous limitation. Being a champion of the consumer will always be a key part of our role, but it’s not enough. 

We need to focus where the greatest value and opportunity lie: on growth, and unlocking it by reorganising around a bold new direction. If we successfully navigate and activate those three areas combined – customer, commercials and culture – we don’t just stay relevant. We become invaluable. Irreplaceable. AI is never going to be able to influence and understand your unique culture to connect and coordinate people and move a business collectively towards growth. Only humans on the ground, face-to-face, can do that.

“If we successfully navigate and activate… we don’t just stay relevant. We become invaluable. Irreplaceable.”

How we move from listening to leading 

We may be a long way from that goal, but we’re already heading in the right direction. The Client Sight 2025 Research, a collaboration between the Market Research Society, Insight Management Academy and AURA finds client-side insight leaders already know influencing the C-Suite is fundamental, ranking it as their top issue. 

But when I coded the topics of 1,700 individual sessions at five-years of flagship insight conferences across the world, I found we’re focused too much on ourselves and the tools and methods of our profession. We spend less than 1% of our time at conferences talking about C-suite impact. 

So, we need a better balance of conference content, training programs and talent attraction but the first step is admitting we have a problem, getting together, grasping the nettle and working out how we convince the C-suite that we’re not here just to collect data or share interesting customer anecdotes. We’re here to create and deliver financial value – and we’re up for the challenge. 

“We’re here to create and deliver financial value – and we’re up for the challenge.”

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