Five Decisions IIEX West 2026 Is Designed to Unblock
Insights teams are being asked to make consequential decisions about AI, research quality, team structure, measurement, and the role of insights itself. In many cases, there isn’t one established playbook to follow.
IIEX West brings several of those decisions into the program, with sessions that offer real examples and evidence alongside roundtables where attendees can compare what they’re seeing inside their own organizations.
Here are five questions you may be working through right now, and where you’ll find them on the IIEX West agenda.
1. How much should you trust synthetic respondents?
Synthetic respondents are moving quickly from an industry conversation to something research teams are being asked to evaluate for actual use.
The harder questions come next: Where can they add value? Where do they introduce risk? What evidence should you require? And how should you assess them against the quality challenges that already exist in human sample?
Can You Trust a Simulated Customer? Findings from 20,000 Replications, presented by Leo Yeykelis of Viewpoints AI with Byron Reeves, Chaired Professor at Stanford University, brings large-scale empirical evidence to a question many teams are actively trying to answer.
The Synthetic Insights roundtable, hosted by Julie Knox of Strat7 Jigsaw, gives attendees a chance to compare where they see meaningful applications and where they remain cautious. AI Ethics & Governance in Research, hosted by Lauren McCluskey of Responsive Research, brings in the standards and safeguards organizations need as adoption grows.
And because this decision can’t be separated from broader research quality, you’ll also find Who Really Answers Our Surveys? Meet the Survivors and a dedicated Data Quality roundtable on the agenda.
Together, these conversations can help you develop a more informed position on where synthetic research belongs in your work.
2. What should your insights team look like a year from now?
AI is changing how research gets done, but technology is only part of the question. Teams are also deciding which capabilities should stay centralized, what can become self-service, and where researchers add the most value.
In The Build: Inside an AI-Native Insights Function, Flavia Stoian, Head of Research & Insights at Candescent, shares what building that function looks like inside an organization.
Sam Wong, Senior Director of Data & AI at Mark Anthony Group, presents The Innovation Engine: How to Build an AI Incubator, while Alex Hernandez-Brun, Insights Lead at Mozilla, tackles the role itself in What’s a Researcher’s Job Now?
Roundtables on Startup Mentality in Insights and Democratizing Research / DIY Tools give attendees space to compare how teams are balancing speed, access, quality, and oversight.
If you’re thinking about the future shape of your function, these conversations offer several models to consider rather than one prescribed path.
3. How should UX research and market research work together?
For many organizations, the boundaries between UX research and market research are already changing. Teams may use different methods and tools, but increasingly they’re contributing to the same questions about customers, products, and business decisions.
The UX + Market Research Convergence roundtable, hosted by Lauren Isaacson of Curio Research, gives practitioners a chance to compare how their organizations are managing that overlap and where the disciplines still need to remain distinct.
The stage program includes researchers already working across those boundaries. Kendra Shapiro leads Consumer Insights & UX Research at Ancestry and joins John Provine of Voicepanel for How Ancestry Rebuilt Customer Understanding at Scale. You’ll also hear from UX research leaders at Airbnb, Roblox, and Charter Communications.
For teams reconsidering how these disciplines work together, IIEX West offers a chance to hear what different structures look like in practice.
4. Are you measuring the right things?
Some measurement programs become so established that changing them can be harder than maintaining them.
Maybe leadership has relied on the same metric for years. Maybe a tracker still produces data but fewer meaningful decisions. Or perhaps the questions your business is asking have changed while the measurement hasn’t.
The Beyond NPS roundtable, hosted by Chris Hauck of HauckEye, creates space to compare how organizations are thinking about loyalty, advocacy, and purchase intent.
The Customer Experience Design & Measurement roundtable, hosted by Paula Rosecky, looks at how measurement connects to the experience customers are actually having, while Quantifying Qualitative Data, hosted by Katrina Noelle of KNow Research & Hootology, explores how teams are working with qualitative information at greater scale.
On stage, Janani Venkataraman, Director of Research at BILL, presents Taking Segmentation FAR: From Research to Action.
The bigger question across these conversations is whether the opportunity lies in what you measure, how you interpret it, or what happens after the research reaches the business.
5. Does your team need better research, or greater influence?
You can produce strong research and still struggle to see it reflected in business decisions.
When that happens, where should your team invest next?
Three IIEX West roundtables approach the challenge from different angles.
Insights Influence & Socialization, hosted by Allison Rak of Vatoca, focuses on helping insights reach the right stakeholders and become part of decision-making.
Storytelling with Data, hosted by Marc Engel, looks at communicating findings in ways that are clear, memorable, and useful.
And The ROI of Insights, hosted by Gary Rudman of GTR Consulting, brings the conversation to business value and how teams demonstrate the contribution research makes.
Susan Blank of Airbnb adds another perspective in From Shelf to Table: Turning Stakeholders into Co-Creators, exploring what changes when stakeholders become part of the research process earlier.
For teams trying to increase the impact of insights, the answer may lie as much in how the work travels through the organization as in the research itself.
Bring the decision you’re working through
You don’t need every topic on the IIEX West agenda to apply to your work.
Start with the questions your team is already asking.
Maybe you’re establishing a position on synthetic research. Maybe you’re redesigning how your team operates, reconsidering a long-standing measurement program, or trying to get strong research used more consistently across the business.
IIEX West gives you two days to hear how other organizations are approaching those decisions, ask questions, compare experiences, and bring new perspective back to your own team.
IIEX West 2026 takes place October 27–28 at Pier 27 in San Francisco.
Speakers, participating companies, sessions, and event details were confirmed at the time of publication. All speakers, sessions, schedules, and program details are subject to change due to circumstances beyond our control.