Our Identities Shape Our Insights, and AI Could Be the Great Multiplier

Each researcher sees the world through a different lens, but what if those lenses, aligned with AI, revealed patterns no single mind could detect? The ICN Census 2025 shows that our diversity isn’t incidental- it’s our industry’s hidden engine!

ICN Census 2025 reveals how gender, generation, and background shape distinct capabilities in the insights community and why closing the AI fluency gap could turn this diversity into our industry’s superpower.

Conducted in April 2025, the Insights Career Network’s inaugural annual member survey was more than a community check-in; it was a pulse poll capturing the realities of the modern insights workforce, following more than a year of labor reshuffling in the insights sector. Nearly 480 professionals participated, representing a cross-section of researchers from across the industry — client-side, supplier, and freelance — spanning Gen Z through Boomers, and spread across U.S. regions and a handful of international markets.

What makes this sample especially relevant is that it mirrors the profession’s current inflection point. Nearly half (46%) of respondents were actively seeking new work, with others freelancing, consulting, or quietly exploring options — reflecting a market in motion. Their stories reveal both the volatility and the resilience shaping today’s insights landscape.

The survey explored employment realities, evolving skill sets, and readiness for new technologies like AI. What emerged was far more than charts and crosstabs — it was a portrait of the insights professionals as they exist today: shaped by background, age, experience, and aspiration, and a roadmap for how we can use technology and inclusion together to future-proof the profession.

We Don’t Just Bring Skills — We Bring Capabilities Shaped by Identity

While AI is dominating headlines, the ICN Census reveals a quieter truth: our human diversity already fuels innovation.

• Women, who constituted many respondents, shine in qualitative research and product development, interpreting human nuance that AI cannot replicate.

• Men lean more toward business strategy and analytics, blending data interpretation with commercial reasoning.

• Gen Z members reveal strong competence in visualization, automation tools, and research operations, reflecting digital nativeness.

• Millennials thrive at the bridge point between storytelling and strategizing, shaping narratives around data.

• Gen X shows deftness in product and brand development.

• Boomers, often transitioning from leadership to mentorship, bring strategic oversight and organizational wisdom — the long lens AI still lacks.​

These identity-based patterns aren’t divisions: they’re assets. The more balanced a team is across these dimensions, the more complete its collective sightline on consumers becomes.

The ICN Census reminds us that our differences — in gender, generation, and lived experience — shape how we analyze, question, and interpret data. These aren’t just personal attributes; they are professional superpowers. As AI becomes a standard part of the insights toolkit, this diversity becomes even more critical — ensuring that the questions we ask, and the insights we uncover, reflect the full spectrum of human experience.

AI Is Our New Bridge — Not Our Replacement

But here’s where the story turns. We excel at our core skills and competencies. But despite widespread excitement, only 8 percent of ICN respondents rated themselves proficient in AI or machine learning applications — a strikingly low figure for a field built on data. That number drops even further among women and is skewed toward men. Freelancers report slightly higher proficiency, reflecting the need to stay competitive in a changing gig market. Only 4 percent reported familiarity with programming languages (e.g., R or Python), and even among younger researchers, literacy in automation tools lagged behind perception.

This gap mirrors broader global trends. According to the Thomson Reuters 2025 “Future of Professionals” report, 46 percent of professionals recognize technology skill deficits on their teams, and 31 percent cite major data-and-AI gaps holding them back. Yet, paradoxically, 96 percent claim basic awareness, revealing what analysts call an “AI fluency illusion.” Skill awareness isn’t skill readiness — and this is where structured upskilling efforts matter.​ The 2025 Pluralsight AI Skills Report echoes this “confidence paradox,” noting that while 92 percent of staff feel confident in their ability to use AI tools, 65 percent of organizations have abandoned projects due to a lack of qualified talent. 

We are still at the dawn of this transformation. In many organizations, AI remains more promise than practice — a collection of emerging tools, not yet a seamlessly integrated collaborator. The researchers who engage early — learning to prompt, prototype, and partner with AI — won’t just adapt; they’ll lead.

AI doesn’t just automate; it can amplify. In our field, that amplification happens in three distinct ways:

• Clarify – helping professionals identify and categorize their own skill sets more precisely.
• Amplify – automating time-intensive tasks such as coding open-ends or building visualizations, freeing time for synthesis and storytelling.
• Extend – opening creative and analytical horizons, from generating synthetic respondents to crafting scenario simulations.

Different professionals will use AI differently — and that’s precisely the opportunity. The same diversity that shapes how we interpret consumers will also shape how we wield this new superpower. The future of insights will not belong to those who master AI alone, but to those who integrate it thoughtfully — combining technical fluency with empathy, cultural awareness, and creativity.

In short, the next generation of research excellence will be as diverse, adaptive, and human as the people shaping it.

The Connective Tissue: Teams That Mix Human Diversity with Machine Capability Win

Studies such as Stanford’s AI Index 2025 and LHH’s 2025 Multigenerational Workforce white paper highlight that multigenerational collaboration builds innovation capacity, particularly when cross-mentoring integrates digital upskilling and soft-skill sharing.​

Meanwhile, the Kadence Research Diversity Study (2024) finds that inclusive research teams interpret data more contextually and avoid cultural blind spots - an essential edge in multicultural markets. Together, these studies affirm what the ICN Census quantified: diversity of identity yields diversity of insight.​

In short, blending the wisdom of Boomers, the strategy of Gen X, the agility of Millennials, and the curiosity of Gen Z, and then augmenting it with AI competency, creates the most resilient, creative, and data-literate research ecosystem possible.

Identity drives perspective. Collaboration drives innovation. AI proficiency drives acceleration. The future of insights won’t belong to those who master AI alone, but to those who integrate its power with their own diverse ways of seeing.

Based on ICN Census 2025: “A Snapshot of the Insights Career Network,” fielded April 2025 (n =474 worldwide).

Cited external reports: Thomson Reuters (2025), Pluralsight AI Skills Report (2025), LHH Multigenerational Workforce (2025), Kadence DE&I Study (2024), and Stanford AI Index (2025