CEO Monthly Reflection June’23
Blog | June 1, 2023
Last week, Greenbook hosted the IIEX Conference in Austin. I remember this conference well from a dozen years ago or so as it was dominated by all kinds of predictions surrounding Mobile. Back then, the presentations highlighted mobile applications, consumer adoption of smartphones and emerging market expansion. A few predictions from that show really held true. For example, they forecasted most emerging market consumers would skip home internet and jump right to mobile access. That proved 100% accurate. Also, the predictions around the concentration of survey takers accessing surveys via smartphones also proved prescient.
However, many predictions also proved wildly off. That comes with the tech innovation territory though.
This year, the novel topic of the day was AI. More specifically, Generative AI. Yes, another reference to ChatGPT. In fact, most of the content showcased applications for AI in Insights. Expect this for a while on the conference circuit.
Since very few Market Research companies were in attendance, I thought I’d share 4 key takeaways:
• There are many new startups getting funded because they are AI centric.
• Most of these startups are attacking the perceived pains in major brands’ insights departments relating to broader organizational access to insights.
• No company there was fully claiming to be a replacement for Researchers’ jobs.
• One line stuck out that you’ll likely hear hundreds of times this year is: “Researchers won’t lose their jobs to AI. They’ll lose their jobs to other Researchers who use AI.”
What is my biggest takeaway from the conference?
The decision most researchers will have to clarify for themselves is “what is my core value to the client?” Then, “what actions in our operation really deliver that value?”
Once that is crystallized in your business, then we all should build processes to automate the lower value tasks. Meanwhile, more time and focus internally can shift to the more sacred, expert-driven value add that is core to your success!