2026 GRIT Insights Practice Report

The trends, methods, operating models, technology shifts, governance challenges, and business pressures reshaping how market research, insights, and analytics teams work today.

Major Themes:

AI Adoption in Research and Analytics 

The industry has converged on three tasks where agentic AI is already embedded: analyzing data, updating reports, and preparing and integrating data. But AI governance remains a critical gap, and confidence in AI risk management correlates directly with exceeding business goals. Know where your organization stands before the gap becomes a liability.

How Insights Teams Are Changing

Brand-side researchers and analytics professionals are diverging on nearly every tracked dimension, and insights operations debuted at 80% recognition across both segments in its first year of tracking. GRIT maps how insights functions are restructuring and where responsibilities are shifting. Use it to make the case for how your team should be designed, resourced, and positioned.

Emerging Research Methods

Emotion and affect analytics and AI-powered video analytics both entered GRIT tracking this year with immediate strong adoption, and synthetic data crossed from niche topic to top-three industry buzz in a single wave. The report shows which segments are leading each method and what early adoption curves looked like for prior breakout methods. Get ahead of client demand instead of catching up to it. 

Market Research Benchmarks

For the first time, GRIT breaks out benchmarks by firm size and tech-led vs. service-led, so you can compare AI adoption, method portfolios, budgets, staffing, and technology investment against the segment that actually looks like yours. 

What's Changing for Research Firms

Mid-size research firms (101 to 500 employees) now lead the industry in revenue growth, capability expansion, and AI governance maturity, while the largest firms are three years into a deliberate exit from fieldwork toward consulting and analytics. The report shows which operating model is winning and where the market is opening up. 

Data Quality and Fraud Prevention

Fraud detection has become embedded standard practice, with 70 to 88% of users across every segment using tools regularly, while brand-side researchers are increasingly building proprietary panels to reduce reliance on external suppliers. GRIT covers where investment is accelerating, how AI governance gaps are creating risk, and which organizations are getting it right.