The findings, which are from Zappi’s Connected Insights Imperative 2026 report and based on a survey of more than 250 marketing and insight professionals, suggest that there has been an increase in the proportion of organisations that have connected consumer insights and data, up to 48% from 38% the previous year.

However, overall satisfaction with the insights function fell from 60% to 48% between 2025 and 2026, according to the report. The report added that with 42% of insight functions were viewed as strategic partners and another 29% as ‘proactive advisers’ by marketers.

Zappi said that satisfaction rose from 9% among ‘disconnected’ organisations to 32% among fragmented ones, 62% for connected and 75% for ‘AI-accelerated’ organisations.

AI was deemed “nearly universal”, with 93% of organisations using the technology in some form.

Despite this, only 8% of organisations were deemed to have reached the ‘AI-accelerated’ stage of their development, Zappi’s report said.

The most common areas where AI was used were data analysis and interpretation ( 39%), increasing productivity and efficiency ( 36%), and generating new ideas and concepts ( 33%).

The study said that 7% of organisations are currently using synthetic respondents within their insights function, although 47% of insights professionals said that they were unwilling to use synthetic data for major decisions, compared with 18% of marketers.

Nataly Kelly, chief marketing officer at Zappi, said: “When consumer understanding can build across innovation, advertising and brand, teams have a stronger foundation for making decisions together. AI can accelerate that learning, but it’s the quality of the decisions that ultimately matters.”