Alongside Content Marketing World, Lions content, the AI in Action Summit, and FEI, TMRE brought a range of insights-related themes to the table for discussion, discovery, and exploration (and with the Insights “Throwdown,” perhaps a touch of humor and entertainment as well).
Whether it was experimenting with artificial intelligence and synthetic panels, or the latest tactics for developing always-on decision intelligence layers, TMRE was filled with content-rich sessions and impactful case studies. There was much for the insights practitioner to take back to the office on Monday morning following the show. All Things Insights was on hand at TMRE 2026, and here’s our perspective from the conference.
Testing, Testing
While AI has been a common topic of conversation at the last few editions of TMRE, this year it felt different. There was less talk about just humans remaining in the loop, and much more discussion on just how to use specific AI tools and capabilities in market research. Market researchers were flexing their new AI muscles, so to speak. Heavy experimentation with AI continued, and the show sessions highlighted any number of tests and experiments, ones that were both successful and not-so-successful, each of which still brought learnings to the forefront.
To be sure, there was still a lot to be explored when it came to human researchers as well. Researchers must oversee, verify, and use their expertise and judgement when it comes to using AI with their teams and stakeholders, said market research leaders. Researchers also need to take control, with irreplaceable human discernment, agency, and choices to stay relevant in the discipline (to use a few of the prevalent buzz words making the rounds at TMRE). Building trust as an advisor with stakeholders and clients was a key theme as well.
There were more specific trends seen at the show as well. Synthetic panels and digital twin experiments abounded at the show. The emphasis on “always-on” decision and intelligence layers was prevalent, a nod to the ways AI is changing the market research field from static surveys to more versatile, 24/7 insights layers that can be used to make impactful decisions faster. Stakeholder partnerships, always emphasized, were having a moment as insights-driven marketing in particular is making a strong data-driven push to the forefront.
The Curious Case of 10,000 Digital Consumers
One session that seemed to highlight many of these themes and provide a picture of the future of insights was, “From AI Moderated Research to Decision Infrastructure,” presented by Dhruv Guliani, Co-Founder and CEO, Keplar, and Oksana Sobol, Vice President of Insights, The Clorox Company. This was part of the AI in Action Summit.
The companies first worked together to build a 10,000-strong digital consumer database using synthetic panels. But it ultimately didn’t work and Clorox killed the digital twins initiative. Why? There were challenges such as that the data lacked the context of living consumers. People are always evolving. The data wasn’t.
“We needed deeper data. Simulations need auditability. But this failure led to a big win at Clorox,” said Sobol.
The killed project ultimately led to a focus on more conversational research in real time featuring a Keplar AI moderator. This gave it the ability to scale the data compared to static, constrained surveys of the past. This eventually led to significant inroads, growing to 20,000-plus consumer interviews, and organically, it grew, especially through word-of-mouth with stakeholders. Ultimately it led to a lot of use cases, discovery and sizing all in one go, developing insights as a proactive system—a robust scaled insights system with the ability to mine the data.
Keplar then created an analytical tool, the Keplar Analyst, to tap into this data warehouse. This tool was able to identify patterns, use the primary data, and all other data, using multi-step analysis. And the data continued to grow. This led Clorox to rebuild demand spaces, integrating other data, streamlining the innovation pipeline, reducing time and expense across the board.
One possible future, or AI journey in this case, were small tests and studies, and growth of the system in a more organic way. This drove a critical mass of conversations, and led to the emergence of the new system. It started to surface consumer insights for strategic growth, data science projects, and marketing projects.
“It just clicked for us. It created a new knowledge system,” said Sobol.
The learnings from the co-created initiative shows just how to scale and rebuild for the future. Pilot a research system. Focus on quality and scale. Expand the use cases. The market research leaders pointed out that it democratized the data and enabled it to be put in the hands of the businesspeople. Develop it into an enterprise decision and organizational system:
1. Build always-on programs.
2. Automate frameworks.
3. Access and enable simulations.
The program led to 20,000 conversations, 200 reports, 5 frameworks, 1,000’s of hours saved, and a 50% increase in decision making at Clorox, Sobol noted.
So what might the future hold in the age of AI? For one, Sobol and Guliani shared that a qual, AI-moderated initiative like this could replace surveys of the past. It could address consumers proactively. It can test ideas earlier and faster than competitors. One might observe that the initial failure of the first test led directly to the second test during their AI journey.
“Start where you can, start small,” advised Sobol.
Expanding the Insights Mission
An example of this experimentation highlighted at the show also included the session, “More Research, Not Less: How Google Grew Its Insights Mandate with Digital Twins,” presented by Jason Kramer, Co-Founder of Focus, and Hadley Edwards, Head of Market Research & Insights, Google Cloud Marketing at Google.
AI is reshaping the future of work. Yet the right solutions can lead to more relevance for insights functions. For Google Cloud, a project with Focus enabled it to increase its research, as well as the speed and access of the research, plus grow its innovation and iteration capabilities.
Focus created what it calls custom AI participants for Google Cloud, using synthetic data and creating digital twins. This created unique and individual perspectives. These are not personas but were created one to one from real people, Kramer indicated. Working with Focus, Edwards’ team built the AI participants of their exact target market: AI developers, IT decision-makers at the director-plus level, CISOs, and C-suite.
In short, the companies built narrative interviews as a foundation, with additional context layers and leveraging LLM, qualitative research, and purpose-built models. Ethical (full consent), transparent sourcing was a priority, and the initiative also ran focus groups with further pressure testing.
The mindset was similar to many other partners experimenting with these new research tools: Build together. Build trust with stakeholders, highlighting the confidence, quality, ease of use and enhanced research. This led to the development of a democratized tool, empowering usage.
Importantly, Focus and Google Cloud highlighted the high quality of the data, pointing to 95% fidelity. Overall, the companies created and grew 168 AI participants so far and counting, which maps specifically to Google Cloud audiences. Building digital twins of a hard-to-reach B2B audience paid dividends.
Rather than holding that access inside insights, Edwards deliberately opened it up. Strategic planning, sales, global marketing, UX, CX, and data science all have active seats today. Her mandate grew because she gave the tool away.
The use cases that followed after that were many: message testing, sales, positioning, content creation, buying committees, jobs to be done frameworks, purchase journey, surveys, and so on. It also led to new product naming, campaign evaluations, training, consultation, assistance and support for the research team.
As the market research community strives to position itself as a valued consultant and advisor, many similar questions arose from the sessions at TMRE. Themes on the future of insights and driving insights that make an impact on business decisions were prevalent. Trends included increasing decision intelligence through always-on systems and through AI and experimentation with synthetic data.
But there is a convergence across the industry: Where are we increasing value? What should we trust? Where is AI just faster and where is it changing the ways of work? Can we develop new research with similar or even higher standards when it comes to quality and rigor? Can we expand access without eroding standards? The experimentation seen at TMRE 2026 is just the beginning.
Editor’s Note: The next Insight to Impact Festival will be held November 2-4, 2027, at the Music City Center in Nashville, TN.
