I realize it’s September (or mid-August, really, at the time of this writing) rather than November, the usual month for giving thanks, but with July’s New York Quirk’s Event now in the rearview mirror, I’m feeling thankful.
First, and selfishly so, it’s because planning and pulling off four large-scale events every year takes a lot of work and I’m glad that our staff gets a bit of a breather before tackling 2027’s gatherings. (In case you’re curious or like to plan ahead, here are the dates and locations for next year: Los Angeles, February 24-25; Chicago, March 24-25; London, April 13-14; New York, August 4-5.)
But mainly I’m thankful that, as an industry, marketing researchers remain an admirably skeptical lot. Specifically I’m thinking about the clear-eyed views of AI and synthetic data that I heard repeatedly expressed at our events throughout the year and most recently in New York.
Rather than rendering in-person (or with-a-real-person!) research methods obsolete, I heard more and more researchers say that data from synthetic respondents has its place in the toolbox, largely and most successfully so far as a kind of directional or first-pass way to cull potential product or ad campaign ideas. As Microsoft’s Romani Patel put it in her New York Event session, “Simulated audiences don’t replace the researcher’s judgment. They extend the number of questions you can afford to ask before you need it.”
Those charitable-if-wary views of synthetic data were in stark contrast to the near-doomsday tone of some of the takes on AI offered by audience members in New York – though the cautionary tales weren’t of the “AI is coming for our jobs” ilk but rather alarm-raising about the virulent hatred for AI among young people. During a session on AI that I moderated, panelists Tina Nathanson of Quest Diagnostics and Kerry-Ellen Schwartz of PepsiCo heard and echoed examples from several audience members whose kids not only don’t like AI but are angry at any suggestion that companies might be using it to influence their purchasing.
That active dislike raises real questions for researchers who are themselves leaning more heavily on AI-powered tools to study those same consumers. If the subjects of your research resent the technology you're using to understand them, that's not a footnote; it's a methodological problem.
And companies likely won’t win any points if they’re honest about their use of AI in advertising, according to findings presented in a session from Dynata and Comcast Advertising.
The companies’ research with 2,500 respondents showed consumers couldn’t always tell which ads were made using AI and which weren’t (and actually found some AI-incorporating ads more appealing) but once AI use was disclosed, viewers’ assessments of purchase intent, authenticity and quality were all significantly reduced.
Lest it sound like the theme in New York was all anti-AI, there were multiple sessions that illustrated the ways AI can be a boon to the researcher’s cause.
In her session with Kirsten Nantz, senior vice president of product at Discuss, Allison Howitt, director of insights and analytics at Reckitt Nutrition, talked about the value of the AI-moderated work they’ve done with healthcare professionals and how AI’s always-on nature let the busy HCPs respond when they had time (rather than a waiting-room full of patients). Howitt also cited AI’s nonjudgemental nature as freeing up respondents’ candor and also lauded the value of letting them talk instead of type for netting responses that are longer and free of the self-editing that can rob typed answers of their color.
So maybe "thankful" is the wrong word for what I felt watching researchers navigate all of this in New York – "reassured" might be closer. Nobody in those sessions was pretending AI and synthetic data are a passing fad. Neither were they viewing them as a silver bullet or a nail in the coffin. What I heard instead, again and again, was a profession doing what it's always done best: asking hard questions of any tool before letting it get anywhere near the data that companies actually act on. If that's the posture marketing research brings forward, I'll take it as a good sign for the industry – and one more reason to be thankful.