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Episode Summary: AI, Innovation, and Market Research Trends (February 13 – February 19, 2026)
AI and Tech Innovations in Market Research
- Simile Raises $100M to Predict Human Behavior with AI
Simile, an AI research startup, secured $100M in funding to advance its predictive analytics platform that forecasts human decision-making. The company’s approach blends generative models with behavioral science to move beyond traditional survey-based insights toward simulation-style predictions — a potential game changer for research teams seeking faster, bias-reduced insights. - quantilope expands its AI assistant “quinn” into an end-to-end research partner
Published February 19, 2026. The company extended quinn from a copilot into a “fully end-to-end” research partner that can draft and edit projects, refine wording, analyze results, and automate reporting and dashboards—positioning AI as a workflow layer across the full quant lifecycle, not just an analysis add-on. - Stravito adds a “Deep Research Agent” to its AI Assistant
Published February 18, 2026. Stravito’s new agent is positioned for multi-step, complex questions—planning its own research workflow, breaking prompts into sub-queries, and searching across an organization’s internal insight repositories using filters like taxonomy tags and document attributes. It’s a notable signal that “deep research” features are moving from general AI tooling into dedicated insight-management platforms built for enterprise governance. - Leger integrates “Smart Persona” with Plus Company to enable real-time dialogue with synthetic personas built from validated data
Published February 19, 2026. The partnership frames synthetic personas as a “speed layer” that stays constrained by research-grade inputs—pairing Plus Company’s persona simulation tech with Leger’s data and methodological positioning to emphasize responsible deployment rather than novelty. - Omnisis upgrades PackSpin for more realistic 3D packaging evaluation inside surveys
Published February 13, 2026. The PackSpin upgrade lets participants rotate, zoom, and annotate 3D shapes and packaging, aiming to close the realism gap between physical pack handling and online pack tests—especially relevant for CPG innovation teams trying to avoid false positives driven by flat stimuli. - Similarweb launches “AI Studio,” combining its digital intelligence with “expert AI agents”
Published February 18, 2026. Alongside its FY2025 results, Similarweb highlighted AI Studio as a new packaged intelligence offering that blends proprietary behavioral datasets with agentic workflows—another example of analytics vendors productizing “agents + data” as the next delivery format for insight. - QuadSci raises $8M Series A to scale telemetry-driven customer intelligence
Published February 18, 2026. QuadSci’s pitch is that “source of truth” customer intelligence sits in product telemetry (not retrospectives in meetings, surveys, and CRM notes), and that applying ML/agentic automation to usage data can predict churn/expansion earlier—an adjacent but increasingly overlapping space for insights, CX, and product analytics teams. - Dig Insights launches “Dig One,” unifying Upsiide and OneCliq under one platform
Published February 18, 2026. Dig One combines innovation testing workflows (Upsiide) with cultural/context signals (OneCliq) in a single environment, explicitly positioning the roadmap toward “agentic intelligence and connected decision-making”—a direction that treats insights less as point-in-time deliverables and more as continuously compounding systems.
B2B Market Research Developments
- Insights Association opens Wave Two of its Data Quality Benchmarking Project and expands participation globally
Published February 16, 2026. The second wave invites organizations to submit anonymized cases to benchmark removal rates and in-survey fraud, explicitly broadening beyond the U.S. and positioning benchmarking as a mechanism to establish international norms—not just vendor-by-vendor defensiveness. - Syno International partners with RAM Market Research to offer cross-media measurement and brand lift analytics
Published February 19, 2026. The joint offer blends data-collection technology with benchmarking plus custom research, aiming to make brand lift (awareness, consideration, favorability, purchase intent) measurable “across streaming and cross-media”—a recurring demand as advertisers attempt to rationalize fragmented channel performance into comparable outcomes. - Comcast Advertising partners with Adara to link premium video exposure to booking-based outcomes in travel
Published February 13, 2026. The partnership connects premium video viewing data to first-party booking and revenue signals, positioned as an alternative to modeled proxies for ROAS attribution—an example of verticalized “deterministic measurement” where research/measurement toolkits are shaped by sector-specific ground truth (in this case, bookings). - Becausal and ABCS Insights launch an “Always-On Sales Lift Measurement” module for CPG
Published February 18, 2026. The module is pitched as continuous incrementality measurement tied directly to audiences—shifting incrementality from a periodic “test-and-learn” exercise into something closer to an always-on KPI layer that informs ongoing optimization. - Quirk’s Media spotlights B2B data-quality positioning via a Q&A with Werk Insight
Published February 17, 2026. The feature frames B2B data quality as a core differentiator—reflecting how “quality” (fraud prevention, verification, and respondent integrity) continues to move from operational detail to front-of-house value proposition, especially for hard-to-reach professional audiences.
Partnerships, Mergers, and Acquisitions
- Pureprofile acquires CRNRSTONE Research to strengthen qualitative capabilities
Published February 16–17, 2026. The acquisition (reported at AUD $700,000) keeps CRNRSTONE operating for now while bringing staff into Pureprofile, expanding the combined offer toward qual panels plus full-service qualitative methods like focus groups and IDIs, alongside Pureprofile’s existing quant-centric capabilities. The deal is a clear example of quant-first providers buying specialist qual infrastructure to deliver more “full stack” programs. - Leger–Plus Company Smart Persona rollout signals “methodology + AI” partnerships becoming formal product lines
Published February 19, 2026. Instead of agencies using synthetic personas informally, this partnership formalizes AI personas as a research product with named ownership (Leger’s data/methods + Plus Company’s simulation layer), reflecting how the market is trying to operationalize synthetic workflows without conceding rigor. - Becausal–ABCS partnership pushes incrementality measurement into always-on “audience + outcomes” systems
Published February 18, 2026. The partnership’s framing—“great audience strategy only matters if you can prove it drove real outcomes”—captures the broader shift from impression-centric reporting toward incrementality as the core proof standard, especially in CPG where sales lift is measurable at multiple levels (product/brand/retailer/audience).
Industry Leadership & Organizational Changes
- YouGov appoints Ian Griffiths as Chair as interim Chair Deborah Davis steps down
Published February 18–19, 2026. Griffiths (a former Kantar Deputy CEO/CFO) takes over immediately and assumes key governance roles, reinforcing how public research firms are prioritizing finance-and-scale experience in board leadership amid heavy investment cycles and accelerating product transitions. - Kantar appoints Sam Rihani as Managing Director for Sweden
Published February 18, 2026. The hire brings a senior operator with a long stint at Meta into a national leadership role, a pattern that aligns with research firms’ push to blend classic insight craft with platform-era commercialization and customer value articulation. - Verve grows its synthetic personas team with five appointments
Published February 18, 2026. The hires span growth leadership and technical/model validation roles, signaling that “synthetic personas” are being staffed like a durable practice area (with methodology, engineering, and validation) rather than a short-term innovation experiment. - GBK Collective promotes Rebecca Szew to partner and Chief Client Officer
Published February 17, 2026. The move elevates a senior research leader into a client leadership role, reinforcing the ongoing convergence between “research leadership” and “commercial/client outcomes leadership” in consultative insight firms. - Sapio Research becomes a certified B Corp
Published February 18, 2026. The certification reflects a continued trend of research agencies formalizing governance, transparency, and stakeholder commitments as part of brand differentiation—particularly relevant in procurement-driven B2B buying cycles where ESG and accountability are increasingly screened. - Gallup ends its U.S. presidential approval/favorability tracking after 88 years
Published February 13, 2026. Gallup positioned the decision as a shift toward areas where it can make a more distinctive contribution and toward “long-term, methodologically sound research” delivered through other vehicles—an unusually visible example of a legacy polling institution redefining its public-facing research portfolio. - ESOMAR appoints Ray Poynter as Chair of its Professional Standards Committee
Published February 13–17, 2026. The appointment elevates an experienced industry figure to a role centered on stewarding the ICC/ESOMAR Code and its application to emerging methods—an especially timely governance signal given how quickly AI-enabled approaches are reshaping data collection and interpretation norms.
Expert Insights & Thought Leadership
- Research Live reflects on “cultural fluency” as a core skill for insight teams navigating fragmentation
Published February 16, 2026. A conference-driven reflection argues that culture no longer moves in a single direction, but in parallel spirals—raising the bar for insight work that needs to interpret contradictory trends and translate them into actionable brand strategy. - Insights & Innovators Podcast from MRII releases an episode on the evolving role of insights in business with Pavi Gupta
Published February 19, 2026. The episode framing reinforces a broad industry narrative: insights functions are expected to expand from measurement and reporting into strategic influence and decision enablement across the business. - Quirk’s AI & Innovation session transcripts spotlight practical AI adoption patterns across qual and quant
Published February 13, 2026. Sessions published that day covered themes like AI as an assistant (not a replacement), “persona agents” and always-on intelligence, AI-powered concept testing, synthetic personas, and pragmatic adoption maturity/ROI—providing a week-specific snapshot of how vendors are packaging AI into day-to-day research operations. - Quirk’s argues for staying grounded in real consumer input amid fast-changing research expectations
Published February 19, 2026. The piece positions the “future forecasting” expectation placed on researchers as risky when not anchored in ongoing customer input—echoing a recurring warning about overconfidence in abstraction, modeling, or secondhand data streams.