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Episode Summary: AI, Innovation, and Market Research Trends (May 2 - May 8, 2025)
AI and Tech Innovations in Market Research
- Panoplai’s “PanoVerse” Launch: Consumer research platform Panoplai (formerly Glimpse) introduced the PanoVerse, an all-in-one system of interactive data repositories for enterprises. The platform ingests and structures raw data from surveys, social media, interview transcripts, point-of-sale systems, etc., as well as formatted inputs like tables and PDFs, enabling unified qual+quant analysis and AI-driven chats with the data or with digital twin models of customer segments. Panoplai positions PanoVerse as an “insight orchestration” partner that lets users integrate internal and external data, apply custom segmentation logic, run automated crosstabs and statistical comparisons, and generate real-time insights on a secure, scalable infrastructure.
- AI Creative Testing – “Moose Review”: Independent Aussie agency Paper Moose unveiled Moose Review, an AI-based creative concept pre-testing tool that uses synthetic “panels” to predict ad performance in minutes. Developed in the agency’s innovation lab, the hybrid approach aims to be more objective than traditional methods; Co-founder Nick Hunter says Moose Review evolved into a “full-blown competitor” to established ad testing firms and can be used early in the creative process to save time and money on false starts. The team reports the tool’s AI-simulated results correlate about 87% with actual human panel feedback, and they’ve adopted a “test early, test often” mantra internally. Currently used for Paper Moose’s own clients, the tool may be offered externally in the future, alongside a new multi-modal “Moose Bot” AI assistant also spawned from the lab.
- Kantar’s Expanded Ad Testing Formats: Kantar extended the in-context creative testing capabilities of its LINK+ platform and the ad-testing LINK AI solution. Brands can now test ads in virtually any channel or format – from niche social platforms (e.g. Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts) to in-game ads and even influencer or experiential content – by simulating real-life viewing contexts. In LINK AI, Kantar added support for static media like digital display, print, and OOH ads, allowing consistent cross-format measurement alongside existing TV and video testing. Early adopter Coca-Cola used these tools to evaluate a multi-channel campaign, and Kantar’s global creative lead Duncan Southgate noted that only “2 out of 3” top-performing TV ads also excel in digital contexts – underscoring the need to test creative in situ to avoid misplaced spend.
- Synthetic Data Platform Upgrade: Argentina-based MR tech firm Livepanel rolled out new features for its SaaS product N-Infinite, which generates “synthetic” survey responses via machine learning. The update lets clients “boost” specific quota groups or infuse census data to augment survey samples, without needing additional profiling data. The goal is to broaden use cases while maintaining acceptable error levels: when primary profiling isn’t possible, these new options provide alternate modeling approaches. Livepanel’s founder Leonardo Valente said the team has worked to make N-Infinite “more accessible for more clients across more projects,” expanding the toolkit for researchers to augment surveys with AI-modeled respondents while preserving data quality.
- GenAI Marketing Mix Analytics: New startup Paramark emerged from stealth on May 2 with $8M in seed funding to quantify marketing’s revenue impact. Powered by generative AI, Paramark’s platform measures the incremental sales lift from ads across channels (TV, video, email, social), helping marketers both optimize strategy and justify budgets in financial terms. Co-founder/CEO Pranav Piyush hinted at adding AI assistants to work alongside human users for forecasting and planning, saying the team has “identified several critical areas” where AI agents will aid decision-making. The funding (led by Greylock, with former CMOs of Dropbox, Salesforce and Amazon participating) underscores the rise of AI-driven marketing analytics tools entering the insights space.
B2B Market Research Developments
- Financial Advisor Insights Community: Data analytics firm Escalent launched The Advisor Exchange, an online insight community of 200+ financial advisors aimed at delivering real-time B2B research insights. The community taps Escalent’s Cogent Syndicated database of U.S. advisors (all with $50M+ AUM) and is managed by Escalent’s recently acquired C Space division. Clients can pose questions to this always-on community for rapid, qualitative feedback to inform product and marketing strategies. Escalent SVP Linda York calls it a “first-of-its-kind shared community” that gives financial services marketers on-demand access to “elite advisors” without the cost and delay of custom recruiting. The platform allows episodic quick feedback or longer-term engagements, with C Space providing research tools to maximize insights.
- Adience Scales Up (B2B Focus): New York-based Adience, a specialist B2B insights consultancy, expanded its senior team to meet rising demand. The firm hired Lynsey Showman as Head of Growth and promoted James Keeling to SVP and Sally Watts to VP, following a year in which Adience’s UK revenue more than doubled and US revenue grew 20%+. Adience (founded 5 years ago by former Circle Research exec Chris Wells) prides itself on “modern, flexible” bespoke research for B2B clients. Wells says their growth has been driven by solving complex challenges for B2B brands, and the leadership additions will help Adience “scale sustainably” while keeping client value at the core. Showman, coming from senior roles at the agency Basis (formerly 2CV) and others, will focus on winning new B2B clients looking for specialist research excellence.
- Forrester’s Volatile Q1: Tech research and advisory firm Forrester Research reported Q1 2025 revenues of $89.9M, down 10.2% year-on-year, with an operating loss driven by an $83.9M goodwill impairment charge. Excluding that write-down, net income still fell to $2.5M (from $3.4M a year prior). CEO George Colony cautioned that 2025 will be “marked by volatility,” but noted Forrester continues to manage costs, generate cash, and maintain guidance. He framed the uncertain climate as an opportunity for Forrester’s continuous research and guidance model to help clients navigate change and optimize costs. For the full year, Forrester forecasts a 4–7.5% revenue decline, reflecting headwinds in the B2B insights and advisory market.
- Gartner Growth Steady: In contrast, rival Gartner delivered an “ahead of expectations” Q1 with revenue up 5.7% (FX-neutral) to $1.534 B. Adjusted EBITDA rose 2.9% to $385M. Notably, all three Gartner divisions saw mid-single-digit growth – Research revenue +5.8%, Conferences +5.4%, Consulting +5.3% – a balanced performance across the board. CEO Gene Hall highlighted that Gartner is managing costs to deliver solid margins while investing for future growth. He noted Gartner continues to provide “significant value” to clients and expects to emerge from the current environment even stronger. (It’s typical for Gartner’s Q1 to be seasonally smaller than Q4, but year-over-year growth indicates resilient demand for B2B insights services even as some clients tighten belts.)
- Pricing Strategy Startup Funding: Stockholm-based Priceagent, which offers a SaaS platform for pricing optimization and market intelligence, raised $550K in seed funding to fuel hiring, sales expansion, and a global rollout. Priceagent’s self-service platform provides real-time data on buyer willingness-to-pay by tapping a pool of over 300 million verified consumers worldwide, and can run price sensitivity tests in minutes using actual consumer feedback. CEO Robert Tinterov said too many brands still price by “habit, by hope, or by copying competitors,” and Priceagent aims to put an end to that with data-driven price guidance based on what customers are truly willing to pay. The seed round included angel investment from former Cint executives, underscoring interest in tools that bring faster B2B research insights (in this case, pricing research) directly to brands.
Partnerships, Mergers, and Acquisitions
- Retail Media Alliance – dunnhumby & Bridg: UK-based customer data science company dunnhumby formed a strategic partnership with Bridg (the Cardlytics-owned identity resolution platform powering the Rippl retail media network). The collaboration aims to help regional grocery and convenience retailers compete in retail media. By combining Bridg’s offline transaction identity data (covering 130M+ US shoppers across dozens of mid-market grocers) with dunnhumby’s shopper insights and retail media platform, the partners seek to capture advertising spend beyond the “top two” retail media giants. Retailers using the joint solution can significantly expand their first-party data pools via Bridg, then monetize those audiences with dunnhumby’s tools – delivering more personalized, closed-loop ad targeting and measurement tied to in-store sales.
- ArborXR Acquires InformXR: In the XR (extended reality) space, LA-based ArborXR, a platform for enterprise VR/AR device management, acquired startup InformXR and simultaneously launched a new analytics product called ArborXR Insights. InformXR provides learning analytics for immersive training programs; its team (founder Dan Kuykendall and engineers) will join ArborXR as part of the deal. ArborXR Insights (now in closed beta with 40 organizations) will allow companies to capture and dashboard VR training performance data, proving ROI for VR content via shareable metrics and BI integrations. The suite boasts rapid integration into learning management systems (deployable in under ten minutes) and supports cross-headset data, aiming to eliminate the “data blind spot” in workplace VR training. CEO Brad Scoggin noted surging interest in immersive training and said the solution lets teams plug VR into existing learning workflows in minutes instead of months.
- Sample Provider Rebrands Post-Acquisition: One year after acquiring Precision Sample, tech-driven insights firm ACKWEST Group has retired the Precision Sample brand and folded the panel into its TestSet first-party data platform. ACKWEST, launched by industry veterans (the founders of Greenfield Online, reInvention, Critical Mix), acquired Precision Sample from Toluna in 2024; at that time the panel had 25M members globally. Now as part of TestSet, Precision Sample’s team remains in place and the panel data is positioned within ACKWEST’s suite for “uncorrupted, unbiased, human-verified data” for clients. The rebranding reflects ACKWEST’s strategy of unifying acquisitions under a single offering – it earlier invested in TestSet’s launch in Europe and brought in former Dynata executives to drive growth – streamlining its services after recent M&A activity.
- Datadog Buys Experimentation Startup: Cloud monitoring and security firm Datadog (known for its DevOps analytics platform) announced the acquisition of Eppo, a San Francisco-based A/B testing and experimentation platform. While terms weren’t officially disclosed, reports suggest a price around $220M. Datadog will integrate Eppo’s capabilities to offer clients a full end-to-end product analytics solution: developers can track code changes, product managers can run experiments to compare features or AI models, and business analysts can assess user engagement and outcomes – all within one ecosystem. Eppo’s AI-driven experimentation tool (backed by ~$47M in VC funding) provides statistical confidence intervals and supports testing multiple models or feature flags simultaneously. Datadog’s Product VP said this helps teams optimize the performance vs. cost trade-offs of deploying AI models and new features, ultimately allowing faster iteration with measurable impact. The move highlights continued convergence of product analytics and insights capabilities via M&A.
Industry Leadership & Organizational Changes
- New CEO at Extreme Reach (XR): Advertising workflow platform Extreme Reach – which integrates ad asset management and talent payments – appointed John Batter as its new Chief Executive Officer. Batter is the former CEO of Gracenote (he led the entertainment data firm through its $560M sale to Nielsen) and was most recently CEO of research/analytics firm MarketCast. He replaces interim CEO Chandler Bigelow (now returning to his CFO role). XR’s Executive Chairman lauded Batter’s “strategic foresight and operational discipline” and said his entertainment and tech background (DreamWorks Animation, Technicolor, launching the M-GO streaming service) will accelerate Extreme Reach’s momentum across the marketing and creator ecosystem. Location: Batter will lead XR (headquartered in North America with global offices) as the company expands solutions that simplify ad delivery and talent payroll via its integrated platform and new products like SpotlightXR and SourceXR.
- Kantar Singapore Creative Lead: Kantar hired Andy Gallagher as Head of Creative & Media Effectiveness for its Singapore Insights division. Gallagher rejoins Kantar after a stint at Amazon Ads in London, where he led ad measurement for EMEA. He previously spent 7 years at Kantar (rising to Head of Media & Digital and then Head of Analytics Consultancy) and has also led media research roles at NBCUniversal and Analytic Partners. In his new Singapore-based role, Gallagher will guide clients on optimizing campaign performance across media and creative. Kantar Singapore GM Jane Ng said she is “thrilled” to have Andy back, noting his expertise in media strategy, creative effectiveness and analytics – combined with an entrepreneurial mindset – will “bring a powerful edge” to the team and help elevate Kantar’s creative and media offerings for APAC clients.
- Founders Step Back at Dig Insights: Three co-founders of Dig Insights, a Toronto-based consumer research agency, announced they are stepping away from day-to-day operations. Dominic Atkinson, Michael Edwards, and Ian Ash (who founded Dig in 2010) will continue as advisors and retain ownership stakes, but are handing the reins to the next generation. Co-founder Paul Gaudette remains as CEO and now the sole founder in management. To support this transition, Dig promoted several long-time team members: 12-year veteran Marcie Connan is now leading Research Excellence, and Kevin Hare (9 years at Dig) becomes head of Client Growth and global adoption of Dig’s tech platform Upsiide. Additionally, four Consulting VPs (Kathleen Coll, Razvan Rosu, Lesley Sloggett, Julien Naggar) were elevated to SVP roles to lead their own teams. Gaudette said this planned evolution positions Dig for its next chapter, and the founders leave day-to-day roles confident in the team “carrying their legacy forward.”
- Zappi Expands C-Suite and Ops: Automated research platform Zappi made several senior hires to drive its next phase of growth. The company named Mike D’Aloia as its new Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) – D’Aloia is a 25-year SaaS and insights industry veteran who led sales at Quid and was SVP of Global Sales at Brandwatch (where he was part of the team that led Brandwatch’s $450M sale to Cision). Zappi also appointed Manjula Kandasamy as VP of Go-to-Market Operations and Ian Myszenski as VP of Revenue Operations. CEO Aaron Kechley welcomed D’Aloia as a “team builder” and noted his experience scaling global revenue in data-driven organizations will be “invaluable” as Zappi continues to expand its client base and develop its platform. (Zappi recently launched an “Innovation System” that blends clients’ proprietary data with LLM (Large Language Model) tech to speed up concept testing and forecasting, underscoring the need for seasoned commercial leadership to support its tech-driven approach.) The new VPs, with experience at companies like Roku, dataxu, Pinterest and Google, will strengthen Zappi’s internal operations and analytics to maximize customer growth and retention.
- Polar Insight Operations Hire: London-based boutique consultancy Polar Insight appointed Robyn Summers as Director of Client Operations, effective May 8. Summers brings 8 years’ experience in research and project management, most recently leading global research programs at Thomson Reuters. In the new role, she’ll focus on sharpening Polar’s delivery frameworks and making it easier for clients to get “fast, high-confidence insights,” aligning with the firm’s mission to deliver “not just data, but tangible momentum.” CEO James Tattersfield said Summers has the operational discipline and empathy needed to put client experience and ROI at the center of everything, noting she joins at a pivotal time as Polar Insight scales from a service provider to a “growth partner.”
Expert Insights & Thought Leadership
- Insights Quality Gap – Lions Report: A new industry study by Lions Advisory (Cannes Lions’ insights arm) revealed that a majority of brands feel their consumer insights aren’t strong enough to drive creative marketing. In the “State of Creativity 2025” report (global survey of 1,000 marketers and creatives), 51% of companies rated their ability to generate high-quality insights as “poor” or “very poor,” versus only 13% who felt it was excellent. The biggest barrier cited was a lack of clarity on what constitutes a quality insight – 18% of brands and 29% of agencies said they struggle to even define a good insight. Other top factors hampering insights were insufficient prioritization and not enough time for deep analysis. The report warns this insights deficit is directly impeding bold creativity in advertising: over half of brands also admitted they struggle to react quickly to cultural moments due to lack of insight and a fear of risk-taking. The Lions study calls for better investment in insight development to unlock creative confidence and drive better long-term creative results.
- Reaching “Unheard” Audiences in Healthcare: An Insights Association article by Amy Santopietro (Director of Consumer Insights at Mass General Brigham) shared how her team is tackling hard-to-reach patient audiences in healthcare research. They recognized that traditional patient panels skewed older, white, and female – missing important segments. To diversify feedback, the team broadened their definition of “primary care” patients to include those using non-traditional clinics (urgent care, OB/GYNs providing primary care services, etc.) and identified 50,000+ additional individuals to invite into their online patient community. For certain niche groups (e.g. elderly Home Hospital patients, avg. age 78), they went old-school, mailing paper surveys to overcome technology barriers. This yielded nearly 50 responses and even follow-up interview volunteers. By “meeting patients where they are” – whether that’s on paper or via translated materials for non-English speakers – the team dramatically improved participation from lower-income, minority, and elderly patients. These inclusive research tactics informed real changes in communications and services, helping ensure healthcare decisions consider voices that are typically underrepresented.