AI in Market Research

AI has caught the world by storm with its impressive ability to do almost any task within just a couple of minutes or even seconds. Many experts across the globe are portraying AI as a threat to human society. It is because there are many areas where AI can potentially replace humans due to their work and time efficiency. But in reality, AI is the most advanced tool created by humans that has the potential to change the way we do things, make us more precise, productive, and while keeping the quality of work intact. In market research, where the quality of a report is judged based on the subject knowledge and experience of the analyst, AI can revolutionize the quality of writing, data representation, and summarizing the report in a way that is understandable by multiple levels of business. If you are ready to look beyond AI’s image as a threat, there are numerous applications of AI in market research. It could be the ultimate tool for market research professionals and their clients. 

Benefits of AI in market research: 

• Data processing:

AI has the capability to process large amounts of data within no time to offer quality insights. This is especially true for qualitative data, where rather than having clear-cut responses, descriptive responses are submitted; for example, surveys. Surveys offer qualitative data that can take a significant amount of time for a human to decode and present actionable insights. AI can do this analysis in exceptionally less time and offer quantitative outcomes. AI can also deliver these insights in a well-structured format for better understanding.

• Survey management:

Companies heavily invest in surveys to generate data from their target audience to understand the market and make decisions accordingly. Survey management requires a massive investment of financial and human resources to ensure its smooth implementation. But with the help of AI, deep learning, and machine learning, we can automate the repeating operations in survey management to effectively reduce the cost of survey programming and improve overall efficiency to promote operational excellence. 

• Virtual Moderators:

AI can be easily trained and programmed to automate responses and feedback from potential audiences. Many companies use AI chatbots for FAQs and other general questions, which otherwise would have required a dedicated team of human respondents. Current popular AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and others have showcased their abilities to handle conversations without ever sounding like a bot. Imagine what it can do while collecting live responses. AI can easily convert audio responses into text format for real-time documentation and derive quantitative responses from that conversation. It can revolutionize the way we do primary research. 

• Doing secondary research:

The quality of secondary research is based on the resources you filter to gather data. However, due to time limitations in market research, it is not possible for analysts to filter out hundreds of resources to obtain the required data. But AI can do precisely that. With AI, analysts can filter out credible resources from a pool of resources to generate quality insights. Thus, AI is being treated as a valuable resource for the market research industry. 

Can AI replace humans in market research?

If anyone thinks that AI can completely replace humans, then they cannot be further from the truth. AI is programmed to filter out responses and data based on its wide acceptance. So, AI is more likely to select popular outcomes rather than credible ones. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, two of the most popular AI chatbots, have showcased this flaw of AI. Furthermore, AI uses user responses to learn and evolve, which is another one of its flaws, as humans are unpredictable. You can be sure of one thing at one time and hate the same thing at different times. Because of such human behavior, AI is prone to flaws. Thus AI needs to have human intervention to keep it in line with the company standards. Because of this, AI can be an excellent tool for the market research industry rather than a replacement.