Customer Experience Podcast

The Future of Customer Research Teams: Innovating for Success in 2024 and Beyond

AI’s enthralling me these days, and it seems the world’s caught in the same spell. One realm set for a profound AI makeover is customer market research—a topic worth diving into since it’s likely on many of your radars too. Exciting or nerve-wracking—depends on which way you look at it.

Qualtrics recent article, “AI Will Revolutionize the Market Research Industry” suggested a couple of thought-provoking stats I thought I would share:

• Threat or Boon? 83% of researchers view AI as an opportunity, with only 7% seeing it as a threat.

• Job impacts? 26% believe AI will birth more market research roles, 35% anticipate a reduction, while 39% reckon it won’t budge the job landscape.

Clearly, the consensus leans toward AI significantly boosting the market research scene, yet there’s no majority stance on its implications for customer insight or market research job stability.

Historically, technologies swept through industries like a forceful wave, sometimes obliterating old norms while birthing new frontiers. Should the AI tide wash over market research, it might erode traditional roles while seeding a fresh bloom in the industry. The upshot? Jobs will morph—both in nature and in the entities they serve.

So, where’s the compass pointing for customer insights? Alyona Medelyan, CEO of Thematic  (alyona@getthematic.com) in Auckland, New Zealand submitted a video for our None of Us Are as Clever as All of Us program, shares her thoughts.

In this episode, we discuss Medelyan’s video and how the AI winds are steering us into uncharted waters, with the market research ship set for a profound voyage.

Here are some other key moments in the discussion:

• 02:50 Colin shares the stats from Qualtrics regarding the future of AI and customer insights and market research.

• 07:53 We roll the video from Medelyan, and talk about our first reactions.

• 13:37  Colin gets into one of the problems he sees with customer insight teams in the larger organization and what that does to the information shared.

• 16:57 Ryan explains the how AI is excellent in creating categories, and demonstrates his SAT-level mastery of fancy-sounding academic words.

• 19:24  We get into the opportunities this affords us regarding preparing for the transformation AI promises to the area and making the most of it for your organization.

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About Colin Shaw

LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the ‘World’s Top 150 Business Influencers.’ As a result, he has over 294,000 followers and 78,000 subscribers to his LinkedIn newsletter ‘Why Customers Buy’. The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy as one of the best management consultancies for four years.

Colin is a renown keynote speaker and undertakes consultancy work and educational workshops to help organizations improve their Customer Experience.

Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University.

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