The high-stakes DIY qual stack: Control, security and AI you can verify
Editor's note: This article is an automated speech-to-text transcription, edited lightly for clarity. For the full session, please watch the recording.
Bringing research in-house can be both a cost and time saving measure. However, several operational strains have come up for researchers.
In this Quirk’s Virtual Sessions – DIY Research from September 24, 2026, Civicom Marketing Research Services’ Edwin Arcilla, global account manager and Annie McDannald, global VP, marketing research services, spoke on these stains and how you could overcome them.
From having to prove AI summaries to stakeholders, technical friction and data privacy risks, it's common to have strain at first. In fact, McDannald says researchers are spending about 70% of their time on the administrative side of qualitative research and only about 30% of their time on strategic analysis.
Session transcript
Joe Rydholm
Hi everybody and welcome to our session, “The high-stakes DIY qual stack: Control, security and AI you can verify.” I’m Quirk’s Editor, Joe Rydholm.
And before we get started, let’s quickly go over the ways you can participate in today’s discussion. You can use the Chat Tab to interact with other attendees, and you can use the Q&A tab to submit questions during the session, and we’ll answer as many questions as we have time for during the Q&A portion.
Our session today is presented by Civicom. Enjoy!
Edwin Arcilla
Hi, and welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us today to talk about evolving your DIY qual stack to support high-stakes control, security and AI you can verify.
My name is Edwin Arcilla, global account manager for Civicom Marketing Research Services. I have years of experience in supporting researchers tailor solutions for global research projects. This is across online IDIs and focus groups, hybrid 360-degree research, online communities and niche respondent recruitment.
Most recently, I've been helping researchers use Quillite to turn their qualitative data into citation-backed, presentation-ready insights.
And I have my colleague, Annie McDannald, joining me today.
Annie McDannald
Thank you, Edwin.
Hi everybody. I'm Annie McDannald. I'm the global vice president here at Civicom Marketing Research Services. I've been working for Civicom and in the research industry for over 17 years now. Edwin and I have worked side by side for about two thirds of that time together and working closely to achieve research success by integrating technology into the qualitative process.
What we talk about most recently is the importance of prioritizing purpose-built technology, prioritizing data security and data privacy amidst the emergence of AI in the industry. And we've noticed the situation that's evolving today.
Right now, we've seen a lot of insights being brought in-house on the corporate side. So a lot of businesses utilizing technology and the advancements in research platforms to be able to achieve a DIY approach to conducting their research. There's a lot of cost savings here, real-time agility for businesses that are focusing on bringing their insights in-house, but right now it's no longer just a cost-cutting measure. It allows you to really capture consumer feedback in real time when you're bringing those things in-house.
You can pivot product strategies. Instantly, you stay closer to the voice of the consumer than ever before. There are a lot of challenges though that emerge when you're bringing those insights in-house.
Edwin, tell us about the problems that organizations are having.
Edwin Arcilla
Right. Happy to.
So, with the insights team bringing their qualitative research in-house, they encounter several operational strains.
First off would be the technical friction, data privacy risk on generic meeting apps, and of course late nights sifting through transcript mountains to defend their AI summaries to executive stakeholders.
Annie McDannald
Civicom is really well positioned to help assist with every single one of these problems.
We've been in business for over 25 years. We're at the forefront of assessing and finding solutions to address our client's operational strains and provide technology and expertise to overcome those challenges.
Now we've worked really closely on the online IDI and focus group space, streaming of in-person research, online communities and the data that comes out of all of that research and leveraging the technical security and data privacy strengths at a global scale that Civicom has, uniquely positions us to help enterprises make sure that they are achieving a responsible and accountable DIY qual stack that's going to empower them today and eliminate some of those technical frictions. Eliminate some of those difficulties that come with having AI output not be verifiable or you're saving time with AI and then you're turning around and spending that time saved by validating the output.
So, we are solving those kinds of problems for customers every day, and this helps us to achieve a solution to these problems.
Edwin Arcilla
And to solve these operational and security challenges, Civicom has to move beyond standard business video apps.
Today, we're going to explore how you can build a professional grade DIY research stack. One that will give you total operational control, protects your sensitive IP, and delivers AI assisted insights that stand up to your boardroom inspection.