AI expected to take over data analysis, research finds

SurveyMonkey said its research showed a quarter of market researchers have used AI daily or weekly over the past three months, primarily for data analysis, data visualisation and developing data-driven recommendations.

Within the next five years, more than a third of market researchers thought AI will take over data analysis and data visualisation, and about a third think it will take over writing survey questions, brand tracking and developing data-driven recommendations.

The findings are according to a SurveyMonkey poll of 170 US market research professionals carried out between 8th and 15th June.

The majority of market researchers in the study said their company’s leadership supports using AI-enabled market research tools, and more than half added their organisation is likely to pay for AI-enabled tools within the next year.

The most prevalent uses for AI are for tasks involving data, with the survey finding that data analysis ( 28%), data visualisation ( 21%) and developing data-driven recommendations ( 21%) are the most common uses.

However, a large portion of market research professionals have not adopted AI into their work, with 49% never having used AI in their work over the past three months.

AI-enabled solutions would make their insights less biased ( 57%), more accurate ( 63%) and faster ( 68%), according to respondents, with AI-generated survey questionnaires ( 61%) and analysing survey data and produce insights ( 71%) seen as good uses of AI.

More than half ( 54%) agree that if they were in the market for a new survey platform, it would be important that the platform incorporates AI.

SurveyMonkey also said that 36% felt AI would help their careers, while 41% said it would equally help and hurt, with respondents also split over its potential impact on their company and the wider market research industry.