AI: Powering Up Insights 2025

09.00 Registration & coffee

09.30 Welcome from the Chair
Babita Earle, Managing Director, Zappi

09.40 Taste the future: Avara's AI-driven approach to poultry innovation
Discover how Human8 helped Avara leverage AI-generated and consumer-reviewed concepts to stay ahead of evolving consumer needs and uncover opportunities to strengthen its position with a major British retailer. This case study showcases how AI was used to generate hundreds of ideas to enhance Avara’s innovation pipeline. Examine how the synergy between AI and traditional insights delivered both time-saving efficiencies and creative outputs.
Sarah Brown, Head of Category & Insight, Avara
Owen Tudor, Director, Human8
Elin Barry, Senior Insight Manager, Human8
Maria Trikalioti, Senior Insight Consultant, Human8

10.10 Enhancing audience research with generative AI
Explore how global media agency, Dentsu, has embraced various forms of AI to identify, build, and understand growth audiences for its clients. This talk will showcase several applications being used, including:

• Synthetic personas: conducting interactive workshops with synthetic respondents
• Marketing concept testing: testing new marketing concepts, such as creative or campaign activations, using generative AI
• Data democratisation: making the dataset more accessible internally through an easier-to-navigate user interface
• Research enhancement: using AI-generated outputs to fill gaps in our current research, both quantitatively and qualitatively

Rachel Leaver, Global Practice Lead – Insights, Dentsu
Maro Mouameletzi, Senior Strategy Partner, Carat

10.40 Unleashing the power of generative AI: the viability of large language models for conjoint and maxdiff analysis in market research
The advent of Large Language Models (LLMs) has the potential to significantly enhance our understanding of consumer preferences. While its potential to predict consumer choices and quantify trade-offs offers exciting prospects, it necessitates a rigorous examination of its predictive reliability, biases, and limitations in capturing the nuanced aspects of human cognition.
In this session, Ipsos will share key findings from its 70+ experiments, evaluating a range of LLMs across diverse scenarios, comparing their performance against real-world data.
Chris Moore, Head of Data Science Transversal, Ipsos
Cameron Stronge, Data Scientist Manager, Ipsos

11.10 Morning refreshments

11.30 PANEL
Discussing the role of synthetic data in market research
This discussion will examine the viability of different applications of synthetic data in market research now and in the future. Join panellists as they consider the key issues that need to be resolved to grow trust in synthetic outputs and the steps towards achieving this.

• Determining the trajectory for synthetic data in market research
• Comparing the reliability of synthetic data to gold standard research outputs
• What’s the path towards improving depth, nuance and humanity in synthetic data?
• Addressing issues around representation and biases in LLMs
• Discussing the importance of transparency and referencing to avoid AI washing

Chaired by:
Steve Phillips, Chief Innovation Officer, Zappi
Panel:
Jasmina Saleh, Senior Manager, Trends & Futures (Thought Leadership), National Research Group
Vanja Ljevar, Chief Data Scientist, Kubic Intelligence
Hasdeep Sethi, Data Science Director, Bonamy Finch

12.00 From bots to bonds: enhancing empathy in consumer research
Can a chatbot truly foster deep human connections?  This presentation will reveal how generative AI-powered chatbots, specifically trained for market research, can enhance empathy in consumer research, leading to rich consumer insights. In addition, hear best practice guidelines on integrating human empathy into research at scale.
Through a series of compelling case studies and research experiments:

• Discover how intelligent probing with empathy works… and when it does not work
• Understand the value of putting the researcher in the loop to shape the context of AI probes
• Hear first-hand accounts from research participants
• See the profound impact of empathic chatbots in generating deeper insights for researchers and their stakeholders
• Understand how building greater empathy is crucial for engaging consumer segments that are typically under-represented in market research
• Gain insights into ways to further deepen empathy through AI-enabled voice and video

Phil Sutcliffe, Managing Partner, Nexxt Intelligence | inca
Ansie Collier, Global Director of Innovation, MMR Research

12.30 Jewels in the data: using AI to uncover deep market insights
In a collaboration between De Beers and Inspirient, a novel AI-assisted approach to uncovering insights from jewellery retailer sales data was implemented, providing a comprehensive view of market dynamics which traditional market analysis struggles with.
The case study will walk delegates through the automation journey, detailing the challenges encountered and the integration of various technical components to achieve full automation—from processing raw sales data to delivering synthesised insights. It will also highlight the strategic decision-making and innovation fostered through this collaboration between De Beers and Inspirient.
Dr. Guillaume Aimetti, Co-founder / CTO, Inspirient
Diana Mitkov, Senior Insight Manager, De Beers

13.00 Lunch

14.00 PANEL
Qualitative conversation or conversational quant?  Unravelling the impact of AI on the essence of qual
Join panellists as they discuss the use of AI in qual research and the implications for this foundational methodology. The discussion will examine developments of qual at scale, use of synthetic respondents and chatbots for research.
Chaired by:
Rollo McIntyre, Chief Innovation Officer (HI), Global Head of Qual ESG, Chief Storytelling Officer, Ipsos UU
Panel:
Tom Woodnutt, Founder, Feeling Mutual
Casper Henningsen CEO & Co-Founder, GetWhy
TBC

14.30 Powering self-service insights at Viasat
Viasat, the global satellite communications company, has hundreds of internal business users that access Insights Space, its class-leading insights portal built on Cognni’s platform. To further democratise and enhance insight delivery across the organisation, Viasat and Cognni have launched the Viasat Enhanced Research Assistant, Vera, which leverages generative AI capabilities.
This case study and demonstration will walk delegates through how this innovation leverages a vast repository of reports, news articles, and proprietary data to answer strategic questions. It will explore the commercial benefits of democratising insights including enhanced decision-making, maximised ROI, efficiency gains, optimised investment, versatility and innovation.  
Ross Anderson, Senior Manager, Customer Insights, Viasat
Gareth Ratcliffe, CEO, Cognni

15.00 Afternoon refreshments

15.20
Henkel’s AI-driven transformation of shopper marketing effectiveness
This case study showcases how Henkel, a global FMCG company, is leveraging Brainsuite AI platform to optimise effectiveness of their e-commerce and shopper asset at scale. Rooted in neuroscience insights, the Brainsuite AI apps predicts how creative assets are processed by the shoppers’ brain. Leveraging these effectiveness insights, Henkel seamlessly optimized creative assets across global markets, empowering teams to make data-backed decisions 3x faster. By integrating Brainsuite Apps into their workflow, Henkel ensured every asset met high standards, enhancing quality and consistency while saving valuable time and resources.
Dr. Dirk Held, Co-Founder aimpower
Vera Wagner, Head of Global Shopper Excellence, Henkel

15.50 Next gen concept testing: exploring essence and energy
This case study demonstrates a new and unique AI powered approach to concept testing employed by Asahi which added richness and context to outputs generated via its online community and consumer focus groups.
Rose Crabb, Deputy MD, Discover.ai
Emma Laney Smith, Founder, Syren
Emese Pintér, Insight Specialist, Asahi

16.20 Shaping the meaning of AI: In conversation with Microsoft + Space Doctors
Join a conversation between Space Doctors and Microsoft exploring the hidden influence of culture shaping the future of AI.
As individuals and businesses question the role and helpfulness of AI in their lives and work, Microsoft seeks to explore how best to position and develop the experience, functionality and future possibilities of this technology in a shifting cultural and human context.
Find out how Microsoft and Space Doctors are developing critical B2C and B2B frameworks to ensure that AI delivers the positive impact it promises, and moves past the shadow narratives and anxieties it can easily play into.
Julius Colwyn, Director - Head of Design, Space Doctors
In conversation with
Microsoft

16.50 Conference round-up

17.00 End of conference