How AI Will Transform Audience Understanding by 2030
Our report, published January 2025
As we step into the next decade, the role of artificial intelligence in audience understanding is becoming impossible to ignore. AI isn’t just a tool for efficiency; it’s a catalyst for a deeper, more strategic approach to insights.
In January 2025 we set out ten ways we expected AI to change how organisations understand their audiences. They are quoted below exactly as we published them, followed by our October 2026 scorecard of how each is landing and what we missed. The full 25-page report is free to download.
Download the report (PDF)
The Ten Calls We Made in January 2025
Quoted from the report as published. We have not edited them since.
01
From Big Reports to Rapid Answers
The Evolution of the 90-Day Research Project
Instead of waiting 90 days for a comprehensive report, leaders can now leverage AI to identify key patterns and trends almost instantly. However, AI isn’t replacing in-depth research; it’s enhancing it.
02
Three Days to Strategy
AI Will Compress Strategic Timelines Into Days, Not Months
By combining AI’s speed with human expertise, businesses can cover 70% of the analysis within days, reserving the remaining 30% for fine-tuning and validation through traditional methods.
03
Deep Needs Trump Surface Data
The End of Demographic Destiny. Finally
Demographics alone can no longer guide effective strategy. The next generation of audience understanding focuses on uncovering the “why” behind behaviours, using AI to identify deep, category-related needs at scale.
04
From Signals to Symphony
Every Customer Interaction Becomes Intelligence
AI transforms these interactions into actionable intelligence, shifting the focus from analysing data to ensuring the right kinds of data are collected. The richness of these interactions is key: it’s not about amassing more data but about curating meaningful, purposeful inputs.
05
From Human Readers to AI Listeners
The Industrialisation of Understanding Words
What was once a labour-intensive process is now an integral part of organisational intelligence. AI can analyse words, but leadership must ensure these insights translate into actions.
06
From Tool Collection to Capability Architecture
The Rise of Insight Capability Architects
The future of audience understanding isn’t about having the most tools; it’s about building integrated capabilities. AI tools are only as valuable as the systems and teams that wield them.
07
From Finding to Forging
The Rise of the Insight Producer
In a world where anyone can generate insights with AI, the differentiator becomes expertise. Much like record producers craft hits, “insight producers” will shape raw AI outputs into meaningful strategies.
08
Return of Creatives and Strategists
Knowing Everything Won’t Be Enough
As AI takes over routine analysis, creative and strategic thinking will define future success. Machines excel at processing data, but humans provide the vision and ingenuity to transform data into impactful decisions.
09
Beyond the Quarterly Pulse
The Renaissance of Long-Term Vision
With short-term audience insights becoming more automated and accessible, competitive advantage now lies in mastering long-term audience and market dynamics.
10
Insights Everywhere
The End of ‘Big Decision Only’ Thinking
This shift allows for more nuanced, human-centred decisions across daily operations, enabling businesses to act with greater empathy and precision. Leadership plays a pivotal role in fostering a culture where actionable insights inform every decision, large or small.
Our Conclusion in 2025
“The next decade will redefine how organisations understand and engage with their audiences. AI is not about replacing human intuition but about amplifying it. It enables leaders to see beyond the surface, uncovering deeper motivations and long-term trends that can shape bold, creative strategies.”
David Boyle discussed the report on The Audiences Podcast: why AI will enhance rather than replace human research, how organisations like P&G were already changing their research timelines and costs, and the rise of “insight architects”. Listen to the episode.
How the Calls Are Landing
Our scorecard, October 2026
Eight are happening, though rarely as cleanly as we wrote, and two are too early to call. None has clearly failed. The bigger lesson is in what we missed. The statuses are our own judgement.
We judge each call on two kinds of evidence, both from after the report came out.
- Saturday AI Thoughts. Every week since February 2026, David has written about the state of AI in an email published by Steadman. It goes to more than 1,000 senior executives across a wide range of industries.
- The TMRE Insights Executive Retreat. Each year David hosts senior insight leaders from large brands for a day off the record, for Informa and LIONS. Three retreats have met since the report: Las Vegas in October 2025, Cannes in June 2026 and Denver in October 2026. What they discussed is our second source.
01
From Big Reports to Rapid Answers Happening
We said days instead of 90. In many of the firms we work with, the expectation is now minutes: “work that took three days is now expected in twenty minutes”. What we didn’t see was the cost. The time saved often comes out of checking.
Saturday AI Thoughts, 19th September 2026
At the retreat At Cannes in June 2026 insight leaders saw the catch: “Faced with a confident answer today or a researched one in a few weeks, a business leader may well take the fast one.” Retreat, Cannes, June 2026
02
Three Days to Strategy Happening
First answers now arrive in days or less. Finished strategy often doesn’t, because the hold-up has moved to people: “Producing has become cheap enough that it is no longer the bottleneck”. We have no evidence yet for our 70/30 split, so we don’t claim it.
03
Deep Needs Trump Surface Data Too early to call
AI has made needs-based work much cheaper to do. We haven’t yet seen demographics lose their grip on most briefs, so we’re not claiming this one.
At the retreat One early sign: in Denver in October 2026, empathy and lived experience took 6% of the discussion, the most at any retreat, and one contribution argued that exploratory research “can reveal emerging needs that structured questionnaires miss”. Retreat, Denver, October 2026
04
From Signals to Symphony Happening
The shift from analysing data to collecting the right data is under way, as we said. It has gained an edge we didn’t foresee: data sets now have to be checked for bots. One market research leader told David she can “tell you right off the bat” when one is full of them, because she once did enough of the work by hand.
Saturday AI Thoughts, 19th September 2026
At the retreat In Las Vegas in October 2025 the room put it plainly: “as AI agents get better, telling people from bots in online surveys gets harder”. Retreat, Las Vegas, October 2025
05
From Human Readers to AI Listeners Happening
Reading words at scale is now practical in a way it wasn’t. Our analysis of the retreat discussions, built in October 2026, is one example: years of off-the-record conversation compared theme by theme. Whether organisations act on what they read, the harder half of the call, is less clear.
06
From Tool Collection to Capability Architecture Happening
The models are now open to everyone on the same terms: “It all runs on tools anyone can subscribe to, for $200 a month”. That leaves the capability around them as the real difference, as we said. Few have built it yet: “I haven’t yet met an organisation with a fully functioning second generation, never mind a third.”
Saturday AI Thoughts, 8th August 2026
At the retreat Putting machines to work took a third of the discussion in Las Vegas (October 2025) and at Cannes (June 2026), then a fifth in Denver (October 2026), where the room concluded that adoption is an organisation problem, not a tool problem. Retreats compared
07
From Finding to Forging Happening
Anyone can now generate an answer, so the value has moved to the person who shapes it. “The edge is the judgement, taste and self-knowledge you bring to it.”
Saturday AI Thoughts, 20th June 2026
At the retreat In Las Vegas in October 2025: “When anyone can sound expert, insight’s new job may be to champion the integrity of the data and be clear where AI exploration stops and validated truth begins.” Retreat, Las Vegas, October 2025
08
Return of Creatives and Strategists Happening
Judgement does matter more, as we said. What we didn’t see is that the work which builds it is going to the machine: “that judgement is a stock, not a trait”. More on that below.
Saturday AI Thoughts, 12th September 2026
At the retreat The retreats moved the same way. The division of labour between human expertise and automated work took 4% of the discussion in Las Vegas (October 2025), then 12% at Cannes (June 2026) and 8% in Denver (October 2026), where it was the largest machine theme. Retreats compared
09
Beyond the Quarterly Pulse Too early to call
Short-term insight has become cheaper, as we said. We haven’t yet seen the renaissance in long-term thinking that we expected to follow.
At the retreat Insight leaders worry about the opposite. In Las Vegas in October 2025 one asked “how to stop long-term work on innovation and brand being squeezed out by the focus on growth today”. Retreat, Las Vegas, October 2025
10
Insights Everywhere Happening
Insight is reaching decisions well beyond the insight team, though not in the orderly way we pictured. One insight leader told David that “self-appointed researchers have started showing up across the business, now that anyone can get an answer out of a chatbot”.
Saturday AI Thoughts, 10th October 2026
At the retreat How insight earns a place in decisions rose from 14% of the discussion in Las Vegas (October 2025) to 28% at Cannes (June 2026) and 27% in Denver (October 2026). The Denver room also listed “self-proclaimed researchers appearing across the business” among its worries. Retreats compared
What We Missed
Five things the report didn’t see coming, and which any view of 2030 now has to include.
AI that does the work, not just helps with it
The report treated AI as a tool for analysts. By 2026 you can hand it whole jobs, and the hard part is management: boundaries set in advance, a memory, and someone who answers for what it does. “The third generation isn’t a tool you use. It’s more like a colleague you manage.”
Saturday AI Thoughts, 8th August 2026
At the retreat Denver, October 2026: “The tools no longer stop at information. A person used to act on the analysis; now the system can act.” Retreat, Denver, October 2026
Checking became the bottleneck
The report did set aside time for validation, as the last step. It turned out to be where the work queues: “The review still happens on Thursday afternoons, so work that is ready on Monday waits anyway.”
Saturday AI Thoughts, 4th July 2026
At the retreat Denver, October 2026: “Declare the source of every response: human, synthetic or tool-assisted.” Retreat, Denver, October 2026
Where the next experts come from
We said people stay essential. We didn’t ask how they get good when the work that trained them goes to the machine. Judgement used to come free with the work, so “nobody ever costed it, so the AI rollout plans I read count the hours saved and nothing else.”
Saturday AI Thoughts, 19th September 2026
At the retreat Denver, October 2026, gave it a name, the apprenticeship problem: “If the tools take the routine work, the learning goes with it unless someone replaces it on purpose.” Retreat, Denver, October 2026
Who controls your audience data
For a report about audience understanding, it said nothing about who holds the data and on what terms. That has become a live question: “Check what your contracts let a vendor do with your data, and what happens to it if that vendor fails or is sold.”
Saturday AI Thoughts, 17th October 2026
At the retreat In Las Vegas in October 2025 one leader had seen a proposal to upload lists of employees to a consumer AI tool. “The fix offered was enterprise licences with contractual guarantees, vetted by lawyers.” Retreat, Las Vegas, October 2025
When the audience is an agent
For a report about understanding audiences, it never asked what happens when the audience hands its choices to a machine. If people let agents shop, book and choose for them, research will have to understand the agents as well as the people.
At the retreat Denver, October 2026: “If people hand their shopping to agents, researchers will need to understand how the agents decide, not only the people.” Retreat, Denver, October 2026
Want to talk about what this means for you?
Let's talk about where your growth will come from.
Get in Touch