Revolutionizing Insights: Steve Phillips on AI, Automation, and the Future of Market Research

In this engaging episode of Talking AI, host Ray Poynter sits down with Steve Phillips, Founder, Chair, and Chief Innovation Officer at Zappi, to explore how artificial intelligence and automation are transforming the world of consumer insights.

Key Highlights

• Steve Phillips' Journey: From the early days of qualitative and quantitative research across multiple continents to founding Zappi, a company built on automating and innovating market research methodologies.
• The Zappi Story: Learn how Zappi shifted the paradigm from slow, expensive research to rapid, scalable, and high-quality insights, leveraging automation and AI from the outset.
• Client Partnerships & Innovation: Discover the importance of 'pirate' clients like Unilever, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo, who partnered early with Zappi to co-create new approaches and how these collaborations led to the birth of ADA, PepsiCo's cutting-edge insights platform.
• Generative AI in Research: Steve explains how the arrival of LLMs (like GPT-3) transformed automated report writing, enabling reports with near-expert quality and real-time data synthesis.
• The Power of Data Assets: Insights on how automation not only accelerates research but also builds vast, actionable data assets for meta-analytics and predictive modeling.
• Democratizing Insights: Addressing the debate about democratization, Steve argues that structured automation empowers insight teams to focus on data architecture and strategy, amplifying their organizational impact.
• Looking Ahead: Predictions for the next 18-24 months, covering synthetic research, AI agents, and how insight teams are poised to lead organizations into an AI-first future.
• Advice for Young Researchers: Steve's advice to newcomers: embrace AI, experiment, and reimagine your role for a data-driven, AI-powered era.

Whether you're a research professional, data enthusiast, or innovation leader, this episode offers a wealth of forward-thinking perspectives on the evolving landscape of insights and AI.

Learn more about Zappi: https://www.zappi.io/

Connect with Ray Poynter: LinkedIn

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Guests: Steve Phillips