Register for free for TMRE Continued 2025
TMRE Continued 2025 Agenda
While the TMRE Continued agenda is currently still evolving as speakers are added, here is the slate of sessions scheduled so far. For the latest on the agenda, click here.
December 2: TMRE Continued Day 1: DIY Research Summit
The first day kicks off with a panel on, “Brands Tell All: DIY Research Success Stories.” As many researchers turn to DIY research as a scrappy, budget-friendly way to quickly get answers, there is a delicate balance between doing it successfully—and not. This panel will offer up real-world success stories from today’s leading brands but will also be an honest discussion about the pitfalls of do it yourself, truths about DIY vs buy, and learned best practices along the way.
The panel features Jasmine Lucas, Director, Market Intelligence & Strategy, McKesson; Brian Cygan, Director, Business Intelligence & Insights, Fuse Media, and Steve Wolf, Director of Consumer Insights, Little Spoon.
The session, “Navigating the GLP-1 Effect: Insights into Consumer Purchase Behavior,” will feature Nolan Lowry, Director, Consumer Insights at 84.51˚. Explore the company’s latest research revealing how weight-loss medications are shifting consumer buying habits. It will review proven techniques to identify genuine changes in shopper preferences and expectations, and examine how GLP-1 use influences not just individuals but entire household purchasing patterns. Discover how brands can adapt to better engage with this evolving audience.
“Scaling Vulnerability – What We Learned from Moderating Sensitive Topics with AI,” features Brian Fowler, Senior Executive Director and Co-Founder, Insights Career Network, and Melanie Solka, Vice President, Education & Events, Insights Career Network.
For decades, qualitative research has faced barriers to scale, including high costs, long turnaround times, and the human bias inherent in sensitive interviews. When tackling a deeply personal topic—such as the struggle to find joy during unemployment —how do you gather candid, vulnerable insights from dozens of participants without budget constraints and without results being contaminated by social desirability bias?
This presentation is a case study recounting the rigorous, small-team process undertaken by the Insights Career Network (ICN). Led by just two experienced volunteer researchers, and utilizing a free or inexpensive AI tool (ForeLight) , they set out to achieve qualitative scale on a tight budget. They will pull back the curtain on The Recipe for Joy study, revealing the intensive DIY work required to transition from traditional human-moderated small groups (used to establish a sensitive baseline) to deploying 158 AI-moderated deep-dive interviews and significantly cutting down on analysis time. Join to learn how to successfully integrate AI into your qualitative practice, minimize bias on sensitive topics, and identify where human expertise remains absolutely irreplaceable in the age of automation.
The DIY Research Summit closes out with, “Smarter, Faster, Better: Making DIY Research More Efficient with AI and Automation,” featuring Bryan Wiggins, Director, Market Research and Analytics, Cotton Council International.
In this session, Wiggins explores how DIY researchers can leverage AI and automation tools to streamline workflows, reduce manual effort, and improve data quality. Drawing on real-world use cases, the talk will outline practical strategies for saving time across survey design, data cleaning, analysis, and reporting. Attendees will gain a clear, non-technical framework for integrating AI into their research processes, along with a discussion of specific tools that can elevate efficiency and impact.
December 3: TMRE Continued Day 2: Insights: The Next Era Summit
This day starts with the panel, “The Future of Market Research: What’s Next?,” featuring Tripp Hughes, Senior Director – Consumer Strategy at Organic Valley; Renata Policicio, Senior Vice President, Global Streaming Research, Warner Bros. Discovery; Karen Kraft, Assoc. Director, Consumer Insights & Analytics, Johnsonville; and Nisreen McConkie, Director of UX Research, Incubation & Checkout, PayPal.
This panel will challenge the status quo of market research and be an ambitious discussion around what’s next. From addressing evolving consumer expectations to fully integrating AI into your research practice and employing new research skillsets, this session will explore current challenges and future opportunities propelling the insights industry into its next era. Join for big-picture visions and honest truths about the future state of research.
Michael Dolenko, Partner & Practice Head, Brand and Communications, Phase 5, will help frame, “Rethinking Brand Health: Why Mental Availability (MA) Deserves a Place in Your Measurement Strategy.” Traditional brand health metrics focus on what consumers know, think and feel about brands, but not when they think of them. New research shows that mental availability (the likelihood your brand comes to mind in a buying moment) may be the missing piece in understanding and driving growth.
The sessions continue with “Predictive Analytics: From Hindsight to Foresight,” with Joseph Rini, Director of Product Management at Market Logic Software.
“Preserving The Human Element in an Age of AI With Deep Discovery Research,” with Jan Dawson, Sr. Director, Research & Insights, Vivint Smart Home. In an era where AI is everywhere, research needs to maintain its grounding in human beings and their lived experiences. Vivint recently conducted in-depth discovery work with a foundation of in-home interviews with consumers across the U.S. followed by a large consumer survey, to ensure that the next generation of our products are grounded in true consumer understanding. Come to this session to hear about why human-centered discovery work is as critical as it ever has been in this new era of AI, and how doing truly open-ended discovery is the best approach to use.
In “Cracking the C-Suite Code: How to Make Insights Impossible to Ignore,” join Ed Keller, Executive Director, Market Research Institute International (MRII), Christina Nathanson, Director, Market and Customer Insights at Quest Diagnostics, and Tina Tonielli, Former U.S. & North America CBIA Lead, Haleon, for a candid, fast-paced conversation about what it really takes to get heard at the top. We’ll reveal what works, what falls flat, and how the best insights pros turn information into influence. You’ll leave ready to elevate your presence, appreciate the need to speak the C-suite’s language, and drive impact that can’t be ignored.
Lastly, “Seeing the Human Behind the Data: A New Layer for Patient Experience,” will be presented by Jessica Lilie, Vice President, Research, Insights and Analytics, Sutter Health, and Kirsten Zapiec, Co-Founder at Emtherical. Traditional PX programs excel at showing what happened, offering essential insight into clinical service improvement. Yet even the strongest systems can miss the deeper human experience behind the numbers. This exploratory work at Sutter Health set out to understand whether adding an AI-driven emotional-intelligence layer could reveal meaning that ratings and sentiment alone cannot capture. The goal was simple: deepen understanding of the full spectrum of patient experience and support a more empathy-based approach to service improvement.
December 4: TMRE Continued Day 3: AI in Action Summit
On the final day, the AI in Action Summit from Las Vegas continues virtually with a range of tech focused sessions.
In the fireside chat, “AI Talent Development: Building Capabilities for the Future,” Kajoli Tankha, Senior Director, Consumer Marketing Insights, Microsoft, and Yogesh Chavda, former Instructor at University of South Carolina, will discuss how the next wave of competitive advantage won’t come from using AI as a tool—it will come from rebuilding your entire organization around intelligent systems. Join forward-thinking leaders as they share how they’re fundamentally restructuring operations, decision-making, and workforce strategies for an AI-native future.
“Retail Revolution: AI Applications for Enhanced Customer Engagement,” will be presented by Yogesh Chavda, former Instructor at University of South Carolina.
The slate also includes, “The AI Renovation Playbook: How to Modernize Your Workflows Without Burning Down the House,” with Michael Bagalman, Vice President, Business Intelligence and Data Science at STARZ. And “AI & HI: Exploring the Balance Between Both,” will be presented by Charitie Dantis-Gayo, Corporate Vice President, Market Research & Insights at New York Life Insurance Company.
Join TMRE for the last opportunity to gather as a community this year and to set the course for 2026, Q1 and beyond. The community will come together to distill lessons learned from TMRE and the entirety of 2025 while also setting sights on what’s next.
Register for free for TMRE Continued 2025
Video: All Things Insights interviewed Antoinette Staples, Senior Director, Customer Insights & Success at McKesson, at TMRE 2025.
