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Episode Summary: AI, Innovation, and Market Research Trends (January 2 – January 8, 2026)
AI and Tech Innovations in Market Research
- Slingwave’s AI-driven ad measurement: Slingwave unveiled an AI-native marketing attribution and ad testing platform for eCommerce and D2C brands. The system uses Bayesian mix modeling and an AI scenario engine to run millions of spend simulations, helping marketers optimize campaigns across channels for incremental impact.
- Comscore’s cross-platform content metrics: Comscore introduced new program-level audience measurement for content across linear TV and streaming. It uses an AWS “Bedrock” agentic AI model to unify viewing data, providing deduplicated daily reach down to specific series and episodes – enabling better cross-platform ad planning and monetization decisions.
- Albertsons’ in-store lift analytics: Albertsons Media Collective rolled out an in-store incrementality measurement program to prove the causal sales lift from retail media. By comparing test stores to matched-control stores (~60 variables for alignment), the grocer isolates the true impact of in-store ads on sales and plans to expand the capability to 800 more locations in 2026.
- Circana’s POS data goes global: Consumer data giant Circana is launching its point-of-sale tracking service for consumer tech and appliances in the UK – the first expansion of this offering beyond North America. The rollout will cover ~75–80% of the UK market and applies Circana’s U.S. data taxonomy to UK sales reports, giving manufacturers and retailers comparable cross-market insights and paving the way for broader European expansion.
Partnerships, Mergers, and Acquisitions
- Norstat buys Offerwise for Americas reach: European data collection firm Norstat acquired Brazil-based Offerwise, expanding Norstat’s access from 4 million respondents in 19 European countries to Offerwise’s 10+ million proprietary panelists across 20 countries in North and Latin America. Offerwise’s founder will stay on as an advisor, while its CEO Rob Dolafi becomes head of a new Norstat Americas unit, as the combined company offers clients a truly global sample footprint.
- Private equity investment in PureSpectrum: PureSpectrum announced a strategic partnership with PE firm TA Associates, which is taking a stake to help scale PureSpectrum’s research tech business. CEO Michael McCrary will continue to lead and remain a significant shareholder; he noted that TA’s backing will fuel product innovation and platform scalability for PureSpectrum’s programmatic sample marketplace and data quality tools.
- UserTesting acquires User Interviews: Customer insights platform UserTesting (a Thoma Bravo portfolio company) acquired User Interviews, a popular participant recruitment platform for user research and AI training data. The move combines User Interviews’ pool of 6 million recruited participants (spanning consumers, B2B professionals, and niche experts) with UserTesting’s on-demand feedback and analytics capabilities, making it faster and easier for companies to source any target audience and ground product and marketing decisions in real human insights.
- Mediaocean & Basis integrate ad platforms: In adtech, Mediaocean and Basis Technologies announced an integration partnership to automate the entire media campaign workflow. Campaigns planned in Basis’s platform can flow directly into Mediaocean’s buying/trafficking system and through to its measurement and verification tools, eliminating manual hand-offs. The companies say this “foundational” integration lays groundwork for AI-driven optimization by unifying programmatic, direct, search, social and other channels in one lifecycle.
Industry Leadership & Organizational Changes
- Toluna Singapore’s new MD: Toluna appointed Gurtej Singh Nagpal as Managing Director and Country Head for Singapore. Nagpal – who spent a decade at Nielsen and four years at Ipsos – brings 15 years of APAC research experience. Toluna’s APAC lead says his mandate will be guiding the next growth phase by combining Toluna’s platform, first-party data, and AI (like its synthetic personas) to deliver rapid, high-confidence insights for clients.
- RepData splits product vs. tech leadership: New Orleans-based sample platform RepData made two C-level hires, bringing on former Kantar CIO Joe Baldini as Chief Technology Officer and Research Defender founder Vignesh Krishnan to head a newly created Product division. CEO Patrick Stokes says deliberately separating “Product” and “Technology” will improve accountability and speed: product development will stay tightly aligned with customer needs, while technology focuses on building a resilient, scalable platform to combat evolving fraud tactics.
- Konovo bolsters team for AI platform growth: Healthcare insights firm Konovo (formed from the merger of Apollo Intelligence’s businesses) added two industry veterans to its leadership. Swathi Kulkarni, former CEO of Elda Health, joins as Managing Director for India to lead a new innovation hub, and Tom Halliday (ex-Clarivate and Norstella) becomes Chief Commercial Officer. CEO Tal Rosenberg says their expertise will help accelerate Konovo’s expansion of its AI-native platform and deepen global healthcare partnerships, aiming to deliver faster, more actionable life science insights worldwide.
- IAS hires Data Science head to drive AI: Ad verification specialist Integral Ad Science (IAS) named Melissa Furze – a longtime LinkedIn analytics executive – as its Global Head of Data Science. Furze spent a decade at LinkedIn (most recently VP of Customer Science) leading AI-driven analytics teams. At IAS, she’ll steer the company’s data science, AI, and analytics strategy, as CEO Lisa Utzschneider notes Furze’s experience in “AI-powered data organizations” will be instrumental as IAS leans into an AI-first product strategy to boost advertising outcomes.
Expert Insights & Thought Leadership
- India’s MR industry sustains double-digit growth: The Market Research Society of India (MRSI) released its annual report showing the Indian insights industry grew ~10.9% in 2025 to reach roughly $3.5 billion in revenue. MRSI President Nitin Kamat says the industry is “entering a phase of maturity” driven by value over volume – with advanced analytics now ~60% of the market – and noted a shift toward integrated, AI-enabled insights to help businesses make decisions with greater speed and precision.