In this special episode, Brian and Andrew bring their live webinar to the podcast feed. Drawing from recent conferences, client conversations, and industry reports, they break down four forces reshaping how research gets done: Capital Influx, the Data Quality Crisis, AI Disruption, and Methodology Reframe.

Brian's core argument is that these are not four separate trends. They are one larger story with feedback loops accelerating each other, and the industry does not get to choose whether the shift happens, only whether it leads or follows.

The episode also features a live Q&A, including a sharp exchange on whether there are research categories where AI should not be used yet, and a direct answer to how you sell quality to a client who thinks $12 CEOs are fine.

Key Takeaways:

• Why OpenAI and Anthropic’s launch of deployment consulting firms is a competitive threat the insights industry needs to take seriously

• What the latest GDQ benchmarks reveal, including a 59.6 percent post-survey removal rate in B2B

• Why the biggest fraud risk is not bots but humans using AI to fake qualifications and game incentives

• Why synthetic data still needs proof, and why every credible synthetic platform still anchors to a verified human sample

• Why the qual and quant divide has not just blurred, it has effectively disappeared

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