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 (November 21 – November 27, 2025)
AI and Tech Innovations in Market Research
- BluePill Raises $6M for Digital Twin Consumers – Seattle-based startup BluePill secured a $6 million seed round to expand its platform of AI “digital twin” consumers. The system uses millions of data points (behavioral signals, surveys, interviews) to build AI personas that think and decide like real customers. By continuously benchmarking against live human panels, BluePill claims it can instantly uncover motivations traditional research misses, offering brands rapid product and campaign testing without survey fatigue. The funding, led by Ubiquity Ventures with Pioneer Square Labs and Flying Fish, will help launch AI persona audiences in sectors like CPG, healthcare, sports, and media – each validated by real-world data to ensure accuracy.
- Cro Metrics Debuts “Ask Iris” AI Data Chat – U.S. digital experience firm Cro Metrics launched Ask Iris, an AI chat interface that lets teams query their customer experimentation data conversationally. The tool shortens the learning curve for non-technical stakeholders (marketing, product, strategy) by providing instant, plain-English insights from complex multi-touchpoint journey data. Cro Metrics says Ask Iris enables “minutes instead of weeks” onboarding to data-driven decision-making, as everyone from CMOs to product managers can simply ask questions and get AI-curated answers drawn solely from the company’s own analytics. Security is built-in – client data stays isolated per account and never mingles, ensuring privacy as AI mines only the firm’s authorized information.
- Anyformat Lands €3.3M to Automate Data Handling – Madrid-based Anyformat, a generative AI platform for document data extraction, raised a €3.3 million seed round to scale its product and sales in Europe. Anyformat’s tech can ingest unstructured documents – contracts, invoices, emails, presentations – and instantly structure the content while keeping sensitive data secure on-premise. Uniquely, the system can merge extracted text with a company’s proprietary databases in real time, enabling automatic cross-referencing of documents with internal records (like customer profiles, policies, catalogs) for faster analysis. Investors led by Kibo Ventures back the vision of “document intelligence” powered by genAI and agentic systems, which CEO Juan Huguet says combines “human intelligence, machine speed” to streamline critical business processes. The startup, already seeing strong demand for AI-driven data ops in regulated industries, expects to top €1M ARR next year as it helps enterprises automate workflows while preserving EU data sovereignty.
B2B Market Research Developments
- Ipsos Expands Global Influentials Survey – Research giant Ipsos broadened its Global Influentials (IGI) study to cover more markets and sectors, promising “the most comprehensive look yet” at affluent business leaders’ media and brand habits. The continuous survey now spans 43 countries with new deep dives in Latin America (adding Argentina, Brazil, Mexico) and sector-specific insights in high-growth areas like finance and AI. IGI surveys 140,000+ top-income consumers and company decision-makers annually, tracking 1,500 product brands and 800 media brands. Early results highlight this elite 20% as trendsetters (68% early adopters) and key influencers across dozens of categories. Ipsos says the richer 2025 data – including customizable recontact surveys – will help advertisers and media planners precisely reach “the right people” with cross-media strategies, as these Global Influentials consider themselves globally minded risk-takers who shape business and personal decisions.
- Basis Global Opens Manchester Office – London-headquartered B2B insights consultancy Basis Global (formerly Basis Research) has expanded to northern England, launching a new office in Manchester on November 27th. Led by Director John Portsmouth, the Manchester hub will support growing client demand in the region and globally. Basis, known for consumer and shopper research, sees the move as part of its strategy to be closer to clients and talent outside London. The firm has been on an expansion drive – this follows its recent openings in New York and Sydney – aiming to combine local market understanding with its global research expertise. The Manchester team will focus on serving consumer brands and retailers with agile insights, and underscores the continued decentralization of research talent hubs beyond capital cities.
- Partners Tackle Survey Fraud for Data Quality – Sample provider Research Results inked a partnership with fraud detection platform Verisoul to ensure higher-quality participants in online studies. By integrating Verisoul’s AI-driven identity verification, Research Results will screen out bots, duplicate respondents, and other bad actors before they ever enter a survey. The goal is to deliver “verified participants” to clients, addressing a growing industry concern over data integrity in B2B and consumer research. With fraudsters becoming more sophisticated, this alliance brings advanced cybersecurity techniques into the respondent recruitment process. Research Results says the move will bolster trust in panel data and improve the reliability of insights – a welcome development as insights professionals increasingly demand demonstrably clean, authentic sample for their studies.
Partnerships, Mergers, and Acquisitions
- Omnicom–IPG Mega-Merger Cleared to Close – The $13.25 billion merger of advertising holding giants Omnicom and IPG is set to complete within days, after receiving final regulatory approval from the EU. The combination will create the world’s largest advertising and marketing services group, uniting two of the “Big Four” networks into one company with 100,000+ staff and $25.6B in annual revenue. Once the deal closes (expected mid-week), the merged entity will operate under the Omnicom name, with Omnicom’s John Wren continuing as Chairman/CEO and IPG’s Philippe Krakowsky becoming COO. Industry analysts say this consolidation reflects clients’ demand for integrated adtech, martech, and research capabilities at massive scale. The merger could reshape vendor landscapes – from creative agencies to research and analytics units – as the new Omnicom aims to leverage combined data assets for cross-platform audience insights.
- Zeta Global Buys Marigold’s Enterprise Software – New York-based marketing cloud Zeta Global acquired the enterprise marketing software business of Marigold (formerly CM Group) for up to $325 million. The deal brings into Zeta’s fold a suite of loyalty, personalization, and omni-channel engagement tools – including well-known platforms Cheetah Digital, Selligent Marketing Cloud, Sailthru, and others – expanding its global footprint with hundreds of new enterprise clients. Zeta raised its 2025 revenue guidance on the news and projects the Marigold assets will add at least $190M to its 2026 revenues. CEO David Steinberg said the buy is “a powerful step forward”, allowing Zeta to infuse its AI-driven marketing platform with robust loyalty program capabilities and e-commerce engagement features. By combining Marigold’s specialty in loyalty with Zeta’s data cloud and AI personalization, the firm aims to boost advertisers’ ROI from 6x to over 10x, and differentiate itself against major marketing tech rivals.
- NIQ Teams with Amazon for Cross-Channel Metrics – NIQ (NielsenIQ) struck a partnership with Amazon to measure the combined reach and sales impact of ads across linear TV and Amazon’s digital channels in Italy. The deal links NIQ’s single-source consumer panel (the Sinottica panel) with Amazon Marketing Cloud data to analyze overlapping and incremental audiences. Advertisers will be able to see, for example, how many consumers saw a product ad on traditional TV vs on Amazon’s streaming or ecommerce ads, and how those exposures drove purchases on Amazon. NIQ’s Maureen Stapleton said the goal is to provide “critical insights that enable smarter media investments”, as brands can finally quantify the value each platform adds. This Italian pilot is part of Amazon’s global initiative to build privacy-safe cross-media measurement. If successful, it could be a blueprint for marketers to evaluate TV + streaming ad strategies in other markets, with NIQ likely expanding similar partnerships to help advertisers optimize spend across converging media channels.
Industry Leadership & Organizational Changes
- Mark Read to Chair Kantar Media – Former WPP CEO Mark Read has been appointed Chairman of the Board at Kantar Media, as the audience measurement firm sets up its first independent governance under new private equity ownership. Read’s arrival (effective Nov 24) comes after H.I.G. Capital acquired Kantar’s media division earlier this year, and it signals Kantar Media’s ambition to transform in the “data & AI” era. CEO Patrick Béhar said having Read – who modernized WPP and has deep digital experience – as Chairman will help “bring clarity to a complex [media] landscape” and accelerate innovation in cross-media analytics. Read stepped down from WPP just months ago after 30+ years with the ad giant. At Kantar Media, he joins fellow new leadership like CFO Rainer Fuchs (hired in September) on a mission to reinvent audience measurement for a fragmented, streaming-driven world.
- Vin DeRobertis Joins Gen Z Insights Firm – Vin DeRobertis, former interim Global CEO of Savanta, has been named President of Washington, D.C.-based Generation Lab, a research company focused on Gen Z attitudes and behaviors. DeRobertis brings decades of industry leadership to Generation Lab as it prepares to launch a new behavioral data platform positioned as an “anti-synthetic” alternative to the synthetic data trend. The company’s Verb AI software tracks opted-in young adults across their digital devices (via an installed app) to capture “nearly everything they do” online – providing clients with passive behavioral data that’s continuously validated by survey feedback. Co-founder Cyrus Beschloss said DeRobertis’ mandate is to scale this approach of combining rich passive data with active youth surveys, in order to give brands a real, privacy-compliant window into Gen Z’s world (versus modeled or AI-generated data). DeRobertis, known for strategic growth stints at Savanta and Research Now, will also drive acquisitions for Generation Lab as it seeks to expand its tech and panel capabilities with the new funding he helped secure.
- Kynetec Hires Ex-Bayer Data Lead as COO – Agricultural and animal health research specialist Kynetec appointed Ines Kapphan as Chief Operating Officer for its global Agriculture division. Kapphan is a seasoned data science and product development leader who spent a decade at Bayer’s Crop Science arm, where she built data analytics solutions and led the global rollout of the FieldView digital farming platform. Based in Zurich, she will now oversee Kynetec’s farmer and vet panel research programs and its agri data analytics services across 80+ countries. Kynetec (formerly part of GfK) has grown via acquisitions in recent years – including a horticulture data firm earlier in 2025 – and CEO Peter Berweger says Kapphan’s mix of “scientific expertise and product innovation” will help connect every step of the agricultural data value chain for clients. Her hiring reflects how market research firms are increasingly recruiting tech and data science executives from industry to lead their operations, especially in specialized B2B sectors like agriculture where advanced analytics are a competitive differentiator.
Expert Insights & Thought Leadership
- Honoring Tech Pioneers in Research – The UK’s ASC (Association for Survey Computing), with support from Ipsos, announced a new “Research Technologist Hall of Fame” to recognize individuals who have made outstanding, long-term contributions to research technology. Launched during the ASC’s annual conference, the Hall of Fame will induct a few trailblazers each year (starting in early 2026) as a permanent honor roll alongside ASC’s existing awards. Unlike product-focused innovation awards, this initiative celebrates the people behind the scenes – the survey software architects, analytics wizards, and data infrastructure experts who quietly transform the industry over decades. Ipsos UK’s COO Shaun Fisher said the Hall of Fame fits with values of innovation and curiosity, noting that many unsung heroes in operations and tech have “made a huge difference” in advancing how we collect and analyze data. By spotlighting these professionals, the ASC hopes to inspire the next generation of research technologists and ensure their achievements are preserved in industry history. (Nominations and an independent judging panel are being set up now, with community input encouraged.)