All about AI: a Q&A with 2 of Toluna’s AI experts

AI is making waves across industries – healthcare, education, finance, market research, you name it. At Toluna, we’re committed to unlocking the full potential of AI to deliver deeper insights and increased speed to action to fuel our clients’ success.

I spoke with two of our AI experts, Renee Smith and Rick Candelaria, to learn more about Toluna’s approach to AI and how AI may transform the insights industry.

Q1. Shivaani: Diving right in, how do you see the role of AI in the future of market research and insights?

A. Rick: AI plays many roles in a data-driven industry like ours and can be leveraged at every step of the market research journey. With AI, we can turn complex data into clear, actionable insights that drive impactful business decisions. Not to mention the ease, speed, and quality of insights AI-powered technologies can provide. As a result, we envision remarkable changes in the industry over the coming years.

A. Renee: Yes, it’s an exciting time. There are many ways that AI can be used to gain deeper insights or increase speed to action to help fuel client business growth. I recently read an industry survey which showed that today, AI is often used in live projects for qualitative analysis and coding of open-ended responses.  In the future, I think the industry will go well beyond these use cases and into developing the research designs, analytics, and scaled AI models to enable adaptive, tailored conversational AI interviews. Provided we conduct “research on research” to demonstrate the quality and rigor of this type of approach, client decision making will benefit greatly from even more information about the “whys” behind the numbers.

 Q2. Shivaani: Are there any developments or trends within the AI landscape that you see as particularly impactful?

A. Renee: For one, using AI to empower fluid, adaptable conversations, paired with the right research designs and analytic approaches will be game changing – not just because it will bring clients a better balance of “why” with “what,” but also because it will be more engaging for the real survey takers whose human intelligence will always be important to our industry.

A. Rick: I find the growing use of synthetic data especially exciting, because of its potential to significantly disrupt the industry. But going back to what Renee said earlier, we want to be sure these methods are properly vetted so we draw the right conclusions. And like any new approach, people will need training to ensure synthetic data is not used in decision-making processes that it isn’t suited for. The industry is just getting started on standards and best practices for how synthetic data is developed and used. Still, there’s no denying the possibilities synthetic data opens- deeper analysis of low incidence audiences, filling gaps for hard-to-reach quota groups to close field work sooner, and improving measurement quality by pre-testing with synthetic personas are just a few examples.

Q3. Shivaani: Sounds promising. I know that Toluna is embracing AI across all lines of business. Can you elaborate on how?

A. Renee: I often get asked this question by clients. AI is at the heart of the Toluna business. So much so that we’ve named our AI approach AI Everywhere – because it truly is! The development and execution of this approach is centered on three pillars. The first is client insights — providing clients with solutions and tools that bring them deeper insights and increase their speed to action. The second is our data and quality pillar, which emphasizes using AI to ensure high-quality data, but also quality throughout the research process. High quality real data is the foundation of robust synthetic data. Platform and tools is our third pillar — our Toluna Start platform is the beating heart of our ecosystem of tools and processes for driving efficiency and quality throughout the entire research and delivery process.

A. Rick: And above and beyond those pillars, our approach is based on combining artificial intelligence with human intelligence and expertise to enhance our capabilities. We see this combination as crucial to differentiation, adding value, and making the technical aspects of AI more user-friendly for our clients. We call this approach augmented intelligence, because it’s not just machines doing all the work. We know that there may be limitations to what a machine can do – at least today. Although with the speed at which AI and its capabilities are advancing, I’m sure some of these limitations will no longer exist in the future.

A. Renee: Yes, and whatever limitations we face today may be replaced in the future by a new set of challenges and opportunities that will need to be tackled by both human intelligence and AI.  As Ron Schneider, the Chairman of the Advertiser Jury Foundation (Stichting Adverteerdersjury Nederland, or SAN) put it after collaborating with us, “You have to think of it as a cook who gets all kinds of ingredients for a successful dinner thanks to AI – the cook still has to give it the finishing touch.”

Q4. Shivaani: Can you share an example (that you’re especially proud of) of how we’ve leveraged AI to help address our client(s)’ needs?

A. Rick: We first started developing AI-based research solutions for our clients over 5 years ago when MetrixLab launched ACT Instant and Toluna set up a dedicated AI/ML lab in its R&D unit, so this isn’t a new space for us. Over time, we’ve seen countless situations where clients were able to meet internal needs that they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to without the help of our AI-based solutions. For example, being able to get insights within a day for critical business decisions or being able to expand the scope of a project to fully meet stakeholder needs thanks to AI efficiencies.

A. Renee: Hey, Shivaani, let’s end on that high note.  Any time we empower our clients in the way Rick mentions, it’s a proud day across the Toluna Group!