Ali Henriques
Global Director of Qualtrics Edge, Qualtrics
For Ali Henriques, global director of Qualtrics Edge, research isn’t just a profession; it’s a lifelong passion. “Research is all I’ve ever done,” she shares, reflecting on a multifaceted career that began in the cruise line industry, where she honed her skills as a client-side researcher and certified moderator. This deep, client-centric foundation fuels her transformative work at Qualtrics.
Today, Ali spearheads Qualtrics Edge, an innovative division she describes as an “in-house incubation agency.” Formerly known as Research Services, Edge embodies a crucial crossroads: honoring traditional research rigor while fearlessly imagining its future. Her diverse team, including ex-agency, client-side researchers, along with data scientists, evolves solutions for market demands, particularly in an AI-driven landscape. It serves as a full-service research agency, incubating and developing next-gen insights tools for evolving market demands.
Ali’s vision for market research is bold: “We’re democratizing insights,” she states, emphasizing a shift from serving “insights buyers” to empowering the “insights consumer” – the marketers, operators and product teams. The goal is to accelerate speed-to-insight, breaking free from weeks-long waits that compromise quality. Recognizing that traditional methods often face resource constraints, Edge empowers stakeholders with immediate access to critical data. Qualtrics Edge’s flagship Edge Audiences solution, deploying advanced AI to simulate consumer behavior, is central to this. It unlocks the ability to explore “counterfactuals” and pre-test concepts in a low-risk environment, ensuring that multimillion-dollar decisions are informed and agile.
Crucially, Ali stresses that this AI evolution isn’t about dehumanizing research. “Humans remain at the core,” she affirms, aligning with Qualtrics’ ethos to “make business more human.” This includes continuous “hydration” of synthetic models with human panelists, ensuring relevance and accuracy. She envisions a future where qualitative and quantitative methods collide, where researchers can “have a conversation” with synthetic segments and where insights are delivered faster, leading directly to action. She anticipates a shift from traditional record-level data to trusted AI answers, driving swifter, more actionable insights. Ali Henriques isn’t just adapting to the future of research; she’s passionately building it.
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