Welcome to twir — the weekly show delivering AI-powered summaries of market research news and insights. Each week, we scan and ingest media from top blogs, podcasts, articles, and reports, distilling the key trends shaping the industry. Best of all, twir episodes learn and get smarter over time, building a POV on an archive of past news and trends.
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Episode Summary: AI, Innovation, and Market Research Trends (April 25 - May 1, 2025)
AI and Tech Innovations in Market Research
- Brooklyn-based startup Structify launched with a $4.1M seed round led by Bain Capital Ventures, offering an AI-driven tool that crawls the web via chat prompts to structure “messy” data from sources like news articles, SEC filings, and social media. Co-founder/CEO Alex Reichenbach says the platform’s AI agents turn unstructured data into usable tables (growing smarter with expert feedback), tackling the issue of inaccurate or stale data for analysts.
- Qualtrics announced a partnership with open-source AI provider LangChain to develop “Qualtrics Experience Agents” on LangChain’s LangGraph platform, enabling always-on generative AI agents for personalized customer and employee interactions. The agents will operate across channels and analyze structured and unstructured feedback in real time, with Qualtrics President of AI Strategy Gurdeep Singh Pall noting the open ecosystem ensures the AI agents integrate seamlessly with companies’ existing tools.
B2B Market Research Developments
- Industry veterans Barbara Deradorian and Carol George (former Synovate/Ipsos execs) launched Affordable Research, a New Jersey consultancy aimed at small and mid-sized businesses, promising accessible customer insights and strategy support for SMEs. Drawing on 30+ years each in custom research across sectors (CPG, financial services, tech, etc.), the founders emphasize personalized attention and practical research solutions tailored to entrepreneurial clients.
Partnerships, Mergers, and Acquisitions
- Ipsos has entered exclusive negotiations to acquire France’s BVA Family research and consulting group, in a move that would expand Ipsos’ global footprint and consulting capabilities.
- NIQ (NielsenIQ) signed an agreement to acquire Gastrograph AI, a sensory insights platform using AI for predictive flavor analysis, aiming to enhance NIQ’s CPG innovation support with AI-driven consumer taste data.
- QuestionPro partnered with consultancy PerformancePoint LLC to integrate QuestionPro’s employee experience data platform with PerformancePoint’s leadership and culture expertise. President Arti Bedi Pullins said the end-to-end solution will help organizations translate engagement insights into “sustainable cultural change,” using live dashboards and predictive analytics to improve workplace culture and customer loyalty.
- SightX, an automated consumer research platform, formed a strategic partnership with consulting firm ZS to deliver “deeper and faster” insights by combining SightX’s AI-powered analytics (including its GenAI insights assistant “Ada”) with ZS’s decades of consulting experience. SightX co-CEO Tim Lawton says the collaboration lets brands make quick decisions without sacrificing depth, allowing more time to act on insights for growth.
- ACKWEST Group, led by research veterans Hugh Davis and Keith Price, acquired the MySoapBox consumer panel from ISA (which is exiting the panel business), bolstering ACKWEST’s TestSet first-party panel with MySoapBox’s high-quality, engaged respondents. ACKWEST’s Michael Sanfelippo noted that integrating MySoapBox with the firm’s AI-driven platform will improve targeting and honor panelists’ experience, while ISA’s Dan Parcon expressed confidence that MySoapBox members will continue contributing to meaningful research under ACKWEST’s roof.
- Apollo Intelligence merged its three healthcare-focused insights companies – InCrowd, Survey Healthcare Global, and GlocalMind – into a single brand Konovo, investing in an upgraded AI-driven research platform. Now led by CEO Tal Rosenberg, Konovo combines a global healthcare professional and patient panel with AI tools for survey design, fraud detection, and agile qual/quant research, aiming to reduce industry “fragmentation” and speed up high-quality insights for life science clients.
- ThinkNow and Emporia Research announced a strategic partnership to launch the first self-serve B2B research solution focused on reaching Latino-owned businesses. This collaboration combines ThinkNow's expertise in multicultural market research with Emporia's advanced B2B data collection capabilities. The new platform aims to provide businesses with accessible and efficient tools to gather insights from Latino-owned enterprises, addressing a significant gap in the market research industry. By leveraging both companies' strengths, the initiative seeks to empower organizations to make informed decisions and foster inclusivity in their research efforts.
Industry Leadership & Organizational Changes
- MarketCast (Los Angeles) promoted Amy Fenton (Chief Analytics & Ops Officer) and Paul Forgue (CFO) to dual Co-President roles tasked with accelerating product innovation. Fenton (a veteran of Nielsen and Kantar) and Forgue will combine their analytics, tech, and finance expertise to advance MarketCast’s data-driven ad and brand research solutions; lead investor Ahmed Wahla of Kohlberg said the duo will fast-track MarketCast’s tech roadmap in an evolving media landscape.
- Circana (the merged IRI/NPD entity) appointed former Kroger/84.51° exec Cara Pratt as President of Global Retail & Media, adding her to the leadership team to drive retail partnerships and retail media strategies. CEO Stuart Aitken said Pratt’s experience in retail media and loyalty will help Circana deliver innovative growth solutions for retailer partners and capitalize on opportunities in the converging retail-media space.
- UK-based insight consultancy Trinity McQueen handed the Managing Director reins to Danielle Hume, as co-founders Anna Cliffe and Robin Horsfield step back from joint MD duties to focus on director roles. Hume, who has been with the firm since 2012 (and on the board since last year), will lead the 35-person team into its “next phase”; Horsfield said it’s the right time for fresh leadership and praised Hume’s passion for client service and talent development as “a natural appointment”.
- Human8 (formerly InSites Consulting) hired Asha Pope as People & Culture Director for its U.S. operations, to strengthen employee engagement and development as the company scales. Pope brings a decade of HR and organizational development experience (ex-Dutchie and Rapid Finance) and will oversee culture-building, career frameworks and talent programs; North America MD Niels Neudecker welcomed her “empathy, strategic thinking, and operational rigor” to support Human8’s 700 staff across 22 offices.
Expert Insights & Thought Leadership
- The UK’s Market Research Society (MRS) launched a “Campaign for Better Data” with major firms like Ipsos and Kantar to uplift data quality and public trust. MRS unveiled new guidance on AI and synthetic data and will provide training to help researchers combat issues like fraud and misinformation. Ipsos UK CEO Kelly Beaver stressed demonstrating how to responsibly harness AI (particularly as the industry embraces synthetic data, understanding that without quality real-world data there can be no quality synthetic data), and Kantar Profiles chief Caroline Frankum urged the industry to unite to engage survey participants and uphold rigorous standards in an AI-driven era. MRS CEO Jane Frost underlined the need for investment in skills and systems to maintain rigorous data quality and “cut through” misinformation, reinforcing that research must uphold public trust in today’s “post-truth” society.
- In a GreenBook article, Vivek Kumar (CEO of startup Socialtrait) described how AI-driven “digital humans” or agents can revolutionize consumer research by simulating thousands of respondents in real time. He noted a Stanford/DeepMind study showing large language models were ~85% accurate in predicting human survey responses, highlighting that brands can use such AI agents as 24/7 “synthetic focus groups” – for example, to overnight test product concepts with 10,000 virtual consumers – dramatically speeding up insights generation.
- Hassan K. Paige (Principal at Eavesdrop) penned a piece busting myths about social listening – arguing it’s not just for big brands nor merely about tracking mentions. He explains that AI-enhanced social listening can reveal industry trends and consumer sentiment, complementing (not replacing) traditional methods by providing real-time insights. Paige cautions that more data isn’t automatically better – insight comes from focusing on meaningful patterns and context – and that AI sentiment analysis still needs human nuance-checking (since sarcasm or slang can fool algorithms).