Harnessing the Power of Generative AI for Marketing Insights

Artificial intelligence has been a part of the marketing research industry for many years now, quietly working in the background, generating templated slides, or catching fake respondents. But the rapid increase in Generative AI’s abilities has brought AI out of the “operational shadows”.

At Ipsos, we've been at the forefront of this AI revolution, both on our own, with whitepapers and research studies on the topic; and in collaboration with some of the sector’s biggest players, including Google’s Our Life With AI: The reality of today and the promise of tomorrow and Microsoft’s e-book on AI Strategy Roadmap: Navigating the stages of value creation. 

Internally, we're making significant investments in understanding how generative AI can impact all facets of our work. From proposal suggestions through to AI-assisted workshops to better action your insights with stakeholders, and AI-assisted curation / meta-analyses that yield richer insights from data that is already in your library. As generative AI continues to improve at a rapid pace, it is becoming increasingly proficient at a wide range of tasks. One area we're particularly excited about are Multimodal Large Language Model (MLLM), ones that can understand words AND images, which opens new opportunities in fields like ethnography. 

One of the ways our client service teams are interfacing with Gen AI is through Ipsos Facto, our secure portal that connects us to cutting-edge language models from OpenAI (Microsoft), Google, Anthropic, and Mistral. But we're not just using these powerful AI tools off the shelf. We've started the process of ‘educating’ our LLMs with rich contextual data from proprietary studies such as ‘What Worries the World’ and ‘Global Trends’, which will eventually enable it to generate outputs that are more relevant, nuanced, and grounded in consumers’ contextual realities.

As Amara's Law reminds us, ‘we often overestimate the short-term impact of new technologies while underestimating their long-term effects’. With the hype around generative AI, it's important to stay focused on the concrete benefits it delivers today - while keeping an open mind about future applications. Today, it has matured to the point where it can be a practical tool to (for example):

1. Rapidly ideate new product concepts
2. Test and validate ideas
3. Crunch large datasets to uncover insights at unprecedented speed

Still, we continue to emphasize with our clients and our staff that human intelligence is critical, and that the combination of artificial intelligence and human intelligence (AI + HI), will be the winning formula. While Generative AI lets brands develop, test, and analyze products and ideas faster and more efficiently than ever before, the human insight remains essential. By marrying the power of AI with the nuance and creativity of HI, marketing leaders can achieve breakthroughs for their brands.

At Ipsos, we'll continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in this space - and to share what we learn with our valued partners. Together, we can harness this transformative technology to shape the future.

PS – If you are asking yourself, ‘did a LLM or human write this?’, the answer is both.

Paul Acerbi, Client Officer, Canada