Every large consumer business is about to have access to the same tools, running over the same data, producing the same answers. The question that decides the next decade of the insights function is what it protects, that nobody else can copy.

That is what over 200 insights leaders will spend a day on in Copenhagen this September.

Let’s start with what has actually changed, which is not the speed of research.

What changed is that the analytical layer of this profession stopped being scarce. A brand manager can now ask a general-purpose model what consumers think about a category and get an answer that is directionally right in five minutes. Not a good answer. A serviceable one. Serviceable is enough to act on when the alternative is waiting six weeks.

This means that every competitor can do the same thing. They are buying the same models, pointing them at the same syndicated data, and arriving at the same conclusions on the same timeline. The predictable output of that is a market where every new concept, every pack, every piece of advertising looks like everyone else's.

That is a differentiation problem, not a throughput problem. It puts the insights function in a position to disrupt the organisation, because it is the only team in the building whose job is to find the unspoken truth, the subtle inferences in speech, the waves happening in real time, that are not stored in the shared data.

The scarcity moved

For 30 years, the value of this function rested partly on access. It commissioned the research, held the findings, and interpreted them for the business. Gatekeeping was not a criticism. It was the operating model.

Once a study can be commissioned without a queue and a two-month wait, more of the business will commission one. Ultimately, with AI, the job has changed altitude. The function that owned access now owns the standard: which questions need designed research, what evidence is good enough to bet on, and where the business is about to bet expensively on a serviceable answer (or believe it or not, without an answer at all). That is the difference between shaping where the business goes and verifying what it already decided.

What does not commoditise

The case for keeping human research at the centre is therefore stronger than ever.

Consider a shopper who switches from a discount retailer’s carrier bags to premium-branded ones. Nothing in her purchase data changes. The reason is how she wants to be seen on her own street. No survey surfaces it. No model infers it unprompted. It takes a well-trained researcher who knows to ask the second question. That is the asset: the understanding underneath behaviour that does not exist in a shared dataset.

At GetWhy, which is sponsoring this article, that is the fundamental product design principle. AI rooted in human sciences. Research-grade AI that works alongside insights teams to shape the business question into the study. The AI-Moderator then runs real video interviews with real consumers, probing dynamically the way a skilled moderator would. The quality bar is published: a 17-criteria evaluation framework for AI-moderation, the only documented standard of its kind. Interpretation stays where it belongs.

EBay’s global consumer insights team is the documented version, independently assessed by Nucleus Research. Turnarounds went from eight weeks to 72 hours across 5,400 interviews. Those insights guided decisions in eBay’s most strategic segments, focus categories grew gross merchandise value (GMV) 15% year on year, and 2,400 people now query the evidence without commissioning a study. The team stopped being the queue and became the standard.

Christine Moeller, AI transformation lead, eBay, said: "They have helped us rethink how an insights function can create value, always with a strong focus on business impact." 

The shift in conversation: GetWhy Summit 2026

GetWhy Summit 2026 is at Villa Copenhagen on 17 September, built around this transformational shift rather than the technology. Speakers include Edwin Taborda of L'Oréal, Tony Costella of Heineken, Anjali Mehra of eBay, and Giles Hedger, previously from Diageo, Saatchi London and Leo Burnett. Colleen Funkey, formerly of Estée Lauder, hosts.

The room is kept small by design. 

The question is not whether AI can run your interviews. It is what your business will have that its competitors do not, once it can.

• GetWhy Summit 2026 is taking place on 17 September at Villa Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Seats are €250. Complimentary ticket for Research Live readers at: getwhy.io/summit2026.