AI Market Research Report: Reinvent the Industry!

Learn how AI will reinvent the market research industry in the future.

Is any industry beyond the long reach of Artificial Intelligence?

FARMING? No, smart harvesters that can spot ripe crops and pick them at the right moment are already in development
EDUCATION? No, AI is currently being tested to grade homework and personalize lesson subject matter
MINING? No, AI is already being used to uncover large ore deposits better than human teams
RETAIL? No, AI is expected to produce personalized product recommendations and custom sales pitches

If AI can reach out and touch teachers and farmers, market researchers are certainly within its grasp too.

Artificial Intelligence, the ability of computers to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as speech and image recognition, iterative learning and creative thinking, has been a touchstone of hope and anxiety for decades.

In market research, will AI choke off jobs, or will it set off a renaissance of new market research innovation and jobs?

Do they think machine learning in market research means that humans with knowledge are no longer useful, or will it propel the industry forward with accelerated momentum?

Qualtrics surveyed 250 market research decision makers to ask them how much they believe AI will impact the industry.

Key findings

AI IS SEEN AS A FORCE FOR GOOD IN MARKET RESEARCH

93% of researchers see AI as an industry opportunity and 7% see it as a threat
80% say AI will make a positive impact on the market-research industry. Both older and younger researchers share this view.

AI is most likely to make support and pure analysis jobs redundant, such as:

BUT NOT BECAUSE MOST EXPECT AI TO CREATE NEW JOBS

26% say AI will create more market research jobs than today while 35% believe it will reduce the overall number of jobs. 39% don’t think it will change the job market.

AI is least likely to kill strategic and qualitative jobs, such as:

SOME MARKET RESEARCH PROFESSIONALS ARE PREPARING TO SWITCH THEIR TASKS, WHILE OTHERS ARE PREPARING TO SWITCH CAREERS

The main way researchers expect to adjust their roles with AI will be to check the accuracy of AI-produced data.
12% have considered a career change out of market research entirely to protect their job from AI (marketing, computer programming and teaching are popular choices)

THE MARKET RESEARCH TASKS MOST AND LEAST SUITED FOR AI

Advanced data analysis is the #1 AI tech expected to make an impact on the industry
63% say AI will take over data analysis within 10 years
Researchers say 26% of surveys will be spoken (instead of typed) within 5 years but 74% say that spoken surveys will yield lower data quality than typed
Researchers don’t think survey-design tools will change as a result of AI
The tasks that researchers most want to hand over to AI are localizing surveys for different countries and data cleaning

Learn more about other important AI marketing stats at Aios.blog!

AI will enhance data quality, and might soon be smart enough to explain your findings

Market researchers unprepared for AI?

Artificial intelligence has been an obsession of Hollywood for decades, but not until the last few years has it really hit the mainstream as a household phrase.

While nearly everyone has heard of AI, fewer are confident they actually know what it is.

Overall, about half of market researchers feel confident they know what AI is but nearly all predict that AI will have a significant impact on the market-research industry within 10 years.

Some of that optimism may be due to high-tech hype, but what used to be hype is starting to look like real-life as we are now have conversations with our phones and climb into cars with no driver.

High-impact technologies by industry:

Conversations, not just clicks

Having a normal conversation with a speaker on your counter is now a thing.

As some of the most striking advancements in AI have come in the form of natural language processing, it’s just a matter of time until it’s common to have a conversation with your speaker as a survey.

Researchers believe that nearly 1 in 4 surveys will be spoken to a digital assistant within 5 years.

Spoken surveys could capture a quarter of the industry’s text survey market share with a relatively short period of time.

But volume doesn’t mean quality, at least not yet.

Believe that spoken surveys will be a better experience for respondents than typed surveys: 32%
Believe that spoken surveys will yield higher data quality than typed surveys: 26%

AI, researcher friend or foe?

Is AI a Threat? An Opportunity? Or Just something we watch in movies.

No one knows if our AI future will look benign and helpful like The Jetsons or dangerous and uncontrollable, like I, Robot. But researchers, at least, are optimistic.

This enthusiasm is shared between older and younger professionals.

Researchers say that AI will bring greater data accuracy, will increase the size of the market-research industry, and will create or maintain more jobs than it destroys.

Check the latest AI job statistics at Aios.blog.

Adapting to AI

Making room for the expected advancements of artificial intelligence means adapting to a major new presence in the industry.

Fifty percent have considered additional training, some are navigating to new roles, Some are leaving the industry entirely, as 22% of professionals think AI will do their job better than they do within 10 years.

HOW MARKET RESEARCH PROFESSIONALS ARE MOST LIKELY TO CHANGE WITH AI:

Will focus on checking AI accuracy
Will focus more on making business recommendations
Will be able to conduct more research

HOW MARKET RESEARCH PROFESSIONALS ARE LEAST LIKELY TO CHANGE WITH AI:

Will take on some non-research projects
Will focus on ensuring research is acted upon
More focus on sharing insights across org

MARKET RESEARCH POSITIONS MOST LIKELY TO BE REPLACED BY AI WITHIN 10 YEARS:

Market Research Assistant (97%)
Statistician (95%)
Research Analyst (94%)
Data Scientist (65%)
Market Analyst (60%)

MARKET RESEARCH POSITIONS LEAST LIKELY TO BE REPLACED BY AI WITHIN 10 YEARS:

VP of Market Research (99%)
Product Manager (98%)
Market Research Project Manager (75%)
Customer Insights Manager (71%)
Ethnographic Researcher (45%)

Your job is safe, these tasks are not

AI has the most obvious application helping with data cleaning and serious statistical analysis, but researchers say it also has a role to play reading open-ended responses, determining sample size, and to a smaller degree finding insights in data just like a researcher would do.

MARKET RESEARCH TASKS MOST LIKELY TO BE PERFORMED BY AI WITHIN 5 YEARS:

Data Cleaning (95%)
Finding Survey Respondents (92%)
Analyzing Open-Ended Comments (87%)

Tasks that researchers want to hand off to AI:

MARKET RESEARCH TASKS LEAST LIKELY TO BE PERFORMED BY AI WITHIN 5 YEARS:

Making Recommendations (98%)
Localizing Surveys to Different Countries (86%)
Writing a Survey (82%)

You can also check AI Writing Stats at AIOS blog.

Tasks that researchers don’t want to hand off to AI:

Source: https://www.qualtrics.com/m/assets/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/AI-in-MR-Final.pdf