Why Empathy Matters More than Ever in an AI-Enabled, Multitasking Culture

Keeping consumers at the center of business and product decisions goes beyond the data we collect and relies on authentic human connection. As devices, distractions, and AI tools shape how people live and interact, market research must adapt. The task is not simply to collect responses but to capture real experiences by creating the right spaces for responses and feedback, and to ensure your research strategy reflects the realities of everyday life and the true feelings and preferences of your target consumers. This allows you to have the consumer empathy needed to connect authentically.

Empathy Is Still a Business Imperative

Brands that fail to show empathy lose more than goodwill. A recent study from Zurich found that 73% of consumers avoid companies that don’t show empathy, and 43% would abandon a brand entirely for that reason.As competition intensifies, that kind of relational risk must be avoided. Companies need to strive to center their customers in their decision-making by understanding deeply what they want (through the right market research approaches, of course!).

To better understand what empathy means in terms of business success and product decisions, researchers need to take into account that it has both rational and emotional dimensions. Recent work describes it in two layers: the cognitive side—what people say they think—and the affective side—what they actually feel. The second layer is often where companies (and some forms of market research) fall short, because understanding relies on nuance. Tone, pauses, body language, and even contradictions between words and behavior can be where the real insight lives. That’s why researchers need to pay more attention to how these cues can be captured and translated.

That focus is echoed outside of research circles as well. Ogilvy’s 2025 loyalty trends reports that as AI and automation scale, human experience must remain the anchor for brand devotion. Marketing leaders also caution that while some virtual and automated communications extend reach, it cannot substitute for authentic connection, which is a good reminder that empathy is still the driver of loyalty in an AI-enabled world.

All of this points to the fact that empathy can’t be an afterthought. Research has to be designed in ways that keep the human connection intact, even as methods evolve and technology plays a bigger role.

What Virtual Methods Risk Losing

Virtual research offers speed, reach, and efficiency, but it also changes the quality of what comes back. Participants are more likely to multitask, and some even lean on AI tools to shape their answers. Those behaviors smooth over the pauses and hesitations that often reveal deeper truths. Without being in the room, researchers also miss nonverbal signals like subtle shifts in posture, eye contact (or not), and the environmental cues that provide important context.

And clients lose part of their seat at the table. When stakeholders sit in the same physical space with consumers and their research teams, they pick up on energy that written reports can’t capture. The side conversations, shared observations, and in-the-moment reactions help build alignment and move decisions forward in ways that are harder to replicate remotely.

This isn’t to say that virtual formats don’t still play an essential role. Rather, the key is to know when empathy matters more than convenience and to build the study design accordingly.

Designing for Empathy across Formats

Empathy-centered research does not have to be an either/or choice between virtual and in-person methods, it can be approached as a balance when all in-person isn’t viable. Virtual interviews or surveys are useful for screening, broad exploration, or quick hypothesis testing. When the objective is emotional depth, in-person or semi-immersive approaches add value. Even a few face-to-face touchpoints, whether through local research hubs or targeted market visits, can surface insights that remain hidden in digital settings.

Hybrid designs like live observation streams allow stakeholders to see some emotion unfold in real time, while still managing cost and distance barriers. Within both virtual and in-person formats, the design itself matters. Allowing silence, revisiting hesitations, and encouraging participants to bring personal objects or stories into the discussion can create the conditions where genuine emotion emerges.

Why the Extra Effort Is Worth It

Cost savings and speed can be highly important, yet emotional richness can be just as powerful a lever. Being in the room accelerates the move from findings to decisions, because shared observation creates alignment and reduces the risk of misinterpretation. It also helps teams internalize what it feels like to be the consumer, rather than only analyzing them from a distance. Richer texture in the insights produced means fewer follow-up rounds and less need for course corrections, so the added clarity often offsets any extra cost. That balance between efficiency and depth is what makes empathy worth the investment. It pays off not only in the moment, but also in how organizations build habits around keeping consumers at the center.

Integrating Empathy Long-Term

To keep empathy central in research, your methods need to support real human expression. That means paying attention to pauses, tone, and sentiment, not just the words on a transcript. A ResearchGate study notes that emerging “empathy analytics” frameworks are exploring how brands can capture and scale these signals across touchpoints, and focus on the cues that reveal the human story behind the data. A focus on the consumer and capturing empathy needs to run through study design, analysis, and strategy.

In an environment shaped by speed, technology, and constant distraction, empathy is what keeps research anchored in human reality. Virtual methods will remain central, but they work best when paired with opportunities to see, hear, and feel consumer experiences more directly. Creating those moments—whether through quick-turn digital feedback, qualitative in-person sessions, or hybrid designs—helps organizations move beyond data points to decisions grounded in lived experience.

When consumer centricity and empathy-gathering studies are treated as an ongoing practice rather than an afterthought, teams gain the clarity and confidence to act in ways that truly resonate with the people they serve.