The market research industry stands at a rare inflection point. The arrival of AI has given us the tools to break out of a decades-long deadlock. It offers us the chance to resolve the impossible trade-off between faster, cheaper and better, giving clients what they want, what they really, really want. But to seize the opportunity, both agencies and clients must rethink how they work together, and more importantly, how value is defined and rewarded. 

Clients have always wanted our thinking (insight, interpretation, direction) but the way most agency commercial models are set up means they are often asked to pay for our doing (project management, recruitment, transcription, analysis). And in a world where a lot of this process is increasingly replicable by AI, clients are stress testing how valuable it is. Meanwhile, agencies are trying to find ways to prevent the erosion of their margins so they can continue to invest in the talent that can deliver what clients want. Unchecked, this feels like a future where nobody really wins. 

To us, AI is not about replacing insight professionals. It’s about liberating them. From verbatim coding. From endless moderation and re-watching. From slide-churning and quote wrangling. It gives us time back, and with it, the ability to focus on what truly matters: framing the right question, interpreting ambiguous signals and guiding commercial decisions. Done right, AI doesn’t just automate. It elevates. 

But if we continue to charge clients based on time and process, we miss the dividend that AI can potentially deliver for us. AI collapses time and process. It turns hours into minutes. Days into seconds. If we cling to input-based pricing, our revenues will collapse with it. 

Instead, we must rebuild the agency commercial model around outputs and impact. Clients should pay not for what we do, but for what we know. Not for ‘12 depth interviews and a topline,’ but for clarity, confidence, and commercial value. 

Let’s stop charging for process and start charging for thinking

This isn’t really new:  repetitive, manual process should be cheap and fast, and sharp, influential thinking should be expensive. 

We can now deploy AI to handle the heavy lifting such as designing screeners, transcribing audio, clustering verbatims and visualising themes. This doesn’t diminish our value; it spotlights it. It lets us unbundle research from logistics. It lets us say, clearly and proudly: you’re not paying us to run a project. You’re paying us to tell you what it means, what to do, and why it matters. 

That shift has huge implications for pricing models, staffing structures, client relationships, and above all, self-image. Agencies that define themselves by the process will fade as will software-as-a-service (SaaS) start-ups who encroach in our space without any sense of the value we really deliver. Agencies that define themselves by critical thinking, synthesis and strategic counsel will thrive. 

Clients must rethink procurement too 

For this to work, for clients to realise the full benefit of what we can deliver for the business to have real, evidence-based impact, they need to meet us halfway. That means challenging the procurement mindset that champions line item breakdowns and input cost comparisons. It means resisting the urge to treat research like a commodity buy. And it means recognising that the real value isn’t in the number of focus groups you can squeeze in, but in the judgment and expertise that help make a high-stakes decision. 

If clients want AI to help their agency deliver cheaper, faster and better, we can’t keep being asked to shave 5% off the bid every time. Because they will – thanks to AI – get cheaper and faster, but only smart human interjection will help clients get to better. 

A win-win future 

Agencies can become leaner, smarter, more profitable businesses. Clients can get sharper insights, delivered faster, at lower total cost. But it requires courage and imagination on both sides. 

Agencies need to stop hiding behind process and start charging honestly for thinking – and be very honest with themselves and their teams on what smart, strategic thinking looks like (it’s not reportage and one hundred slide decks).  

For their part, clients need to stop treating research as a cost centre and start treating it as a strategic asset. 

AI is not the end of the insight industry. It’s the end of business as usual. And for those willing to embrace it, that’s incredibly good news. 

Richard Owen is head of innovation at Firefish Group