Inside Fandom, Innovation & Global Research with Sofia Gomez-Garcia of Warner Bros. Discovery

In this episode, Karen Lynch sits down with Sofia Gomez-Garcia, Executive Director of Innovation, Special Projects, and Global Community Management at Warner Bros. Discovery. Sofia shares the behind-the-scenes story of managing the A-List—WBD’s long-standing, non-incentivized insights community of over 45,000 fans—and how fandom fuels research agility and engagement.

She unpacks how WBD expands globally while preserving local relevance, and dives into groundbreaking studies like the company’s biometric research on nostalgia-driven content discovery. Plus, hear why Sofia is bullish on experimentation, gamification, and AI’s potential to elevate both speed and quality in insights.

Key Discussion Points:

• The evolution and impact of the Warner Bros. A-List community
• Why a non-incentivized panel works—and how fandom drives participation
• The strategic use of sub-communities (e.g., Harry Potter, DC)
• Expanding globally: launching in Japan, France, and Germany
• Biometric research on nostalgia, content browsing, and emotional response
• Balancing innovative and traditional methodologies
• Sofia’s forward-looking take on AI, synthetic data, and research integrity

Resources & Links:

• Warner Bros. Discovery
• NeuralSense (biometric research partner)

You can reach out to Sofia Gomez Garcia on LinkedIn.

Many thanks to Sofia Gomez Garcia for being our guest. Thanks also to our production team and our editor at Big Bad Audio.

Transcript

Karen: Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Greenbook Podcast. I’m Karen Lynch, happy to be hosting today, and I have with me a guest from Warner Bros. Discovery. I’m talking with Sofia Gomez Garcia, who is the Executive Director in Innovation, Special Projects& Global Community Management, which is a mouthful, but I got through it, so I’m feeling, you know, ahead of the game there. But wait until we, like, dissect what all of that means for you, friends. It’s an incredible role that she has. We had an amazing conversation before this recording. But before we get into it, I just want to welcome you, Sofia, and say thank you so much for joining us on the show.

Sofia: Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Karen: I’m so glad. I’m so glad. So, why don’t you expand a little bit on your role for the people listening, and tell them all of the, kind of, nuances of what that lengthy title entails.

Sofia: Sure. I sit in the Content Sales Global Research Team at Warner Bros. Discovery. So, we really service and support the entire life cycle of all the Warner Bros. Discovery movies and series after the first window. So, a lot of the remit, you know, that is charged to us, or what I do, has to do with primary research. So, when I was hired, the innovation component definitely helped us cover some additional kind of product categories we had at the time. We were doing work on, you know, virtual reality, augmented reality, and immersive experiences at home and location-based, so that’s where a lot of that came from. But at the end of the day, we are focusing on supporting the catalog and the new releases that come through the company. So, it’s a little broad to try to explain, but the easiest way is always going back to just think of the life cycle: after it’s done with its first run, everything else is content, sales, and we try to support that.

Karen: Yeah. Fantastic, fantastic. And thinking about your career journey and kind of how you ended up here, what are some of those milestones along the way that you think positioned you well for this role? 

Sofia: Well, I fell into resear—I feel like a lot of people have a similar experience where they fall into research somehow. My personal experience, I started working more and developing an interest in consumer insights while I was getting my MBA at UCLA. So, I started my career as an admin. And I was a client for one of the research firms here in LA, but while I was getting my degree, I got a little more exposure and interest in working in that space, so I made the transition. Some opportunities presented themselves for me to do that, and it was fantastic. So, I was able to work on the agency side after graduating. So, I worked at Screen Engine/ASI, which their bread and butter is very much, you know, the theatrical research… space, and [laugh] they’re amazing. I learned so much there. And while I was at Screen Engine, I was trained up through the custom research discipline, which was very helpful because it meant that I could pivot to different types of projects, and not just media or content-related. So, that gave me a lot of flexibility to develop skills that could be applied to, let’s say, retail or lifestyle or gaming, you know, which we did at the time. And then right after Covid, there was an opening and opportunity for me to come join the Warner’s team. So, I’ve been here ever since.

Karen: Yeah. That’s fantastic. And, you know, I [laugh] I feel like we’re going to get into some of these, and you’ll be dropping some shows and programming that you work on, but let’s just give everybody a, kind of, just a just the heads up for some of the special programs that—and I don’t mean the details right now—but just, you know, the name brands and the name brand shows that people would probably find highly relevant, and anyway, give them a spoiler of the ones you’ve worked on.

Sofia: Oh, sure. I mean, the WBD company is super broad in terms of, like, the brands that we support, so people will obviously recognize names like, you know, HBO, DC, Harry Potter. We do a lot of work for WBTV catalog, so I work on series like Friends or Gilmore Girls, or we work on deep catalog like Wizard of Oz. But we also, like I said, we manage all of the windows after the first, so we will do things for the more recent new release. So, anything that’s coming through the theatrical slate this year, most recently. You know, pretty soon, Minecraft will hit the transactional window, so we’re definitely working on that. So, it’s kind of a weird mix of titles that you get to work with. Sometimes you got to go like, oh yeah, I have to pull something from the ’80s here, which still actually really holds a big fan base, and how can we continue to grow that? But at the same time, you’re also in new territory with the theatrical slate and the new release slate. So, it’s kind of a pulling in both directions, when you think about it. 

Karen: I’m so grateful that you let me take you there because, you know, so many people in our audience, they might be in financial services, they might be in consumer packaged goods, but entertainment is a different—well, it’s an entirely different sort of ecosystem, so it’s nice to have that perspective shared. And anyway, so I’m grateful. But let’s just talk a little bit about this community because that is really the heart of this conversation. And when I say this community, you have a global community that you are managing at Warner Bros. And it’s one called the A-List. It’s been running for a long time. But let’s just talk about this community in general and to those of you listening, I want you to pay attention as Sofia is describing it because there is a key detail that we’re going to dig into next [laugh].

Sofia: Yeah, happy to talk about the A-List. So, it’s one of several communities that the company has under research groups. And similar to any other company, we have them as a research resource. It’s an insights panel. We recruit targeted consumers, in our case, that we can tap into, and there’s a lot of cost savings involved, as opposed to, you know, paying for outside sample, and used appropriately can really deliver a lot of results and return on investment. So, in particular, the Warner Bros. A-List community, it’s been around, like you said, I think over 15 years now. I’ve been working on it since I joined the company. And it’s really an amazing resource. We try to leverage it to the entire company, not just our business unit because the community is branded as the Warner Bros. Community. So, from the consumer point of view, anyone that joins, they’re really getting an extension of the Warner Bros. Brand. And that halo is very beneficial and gives us a lot of flexibility to not just pipe through research, you know, most relevant to me and my team, but we can do stuff for the brand team or the gaming division. Anyone that touches a WB brand, you know, can take advantage of it, and they have. So, it’s very beneficial for us to keep that diversity of research used with the community.

Karen: I want to pause a minute because—I think I shared this with you in our pre-call also—you know, I had managed communities for a very large organization, and we had much debate about whether to keep it under the corporate name, right? Like this is who this is, who you know, is the you know, sponsor of this community, or be more anonymous with it, like, you are all consumers of this category, therefore you’re in this community together. And it was a debate, right? We had to make some decisions there. Do you know—I think it was set up long before you joined them—but do you know historically how that debate played out? 

Sofia: I unfortunately don’t, but I do know that it does benefit us to have the brand up front and center. It’s great for recruiting, it’s great for retention, and for the use that we get from the community, the downsides of having something like exposure or bias to the brand are much less compared to those, you know, benefits that we get from identifying the people that we exactly want to be talking to.

Karen: Yeah. And you also have sub communities within it, right? So, it kind of even drills down to these are not just, you know, kind of fans of Warner Bros. But they could also be in the sub genres. Talk a little bit about that, and what you’re developing there.

Sofia: Yeah, absolutely. So, it’s something that I developed in the last couple of years because we did recognize that because it is a broad library and a broad portfolio of brands, there is a scenario where someone who joins the community is not getting what they like about the Warner Bros. Experience. So, for example, we have very avid fans—you know, one of the biggest fan bases in the world—for Harry Potter, so it makes sense that we’re recruiting them to the Warner Bros. Community, there’s a space dedicated to them where they can get, more specifically, Harry Potter content and, you know, surveys and experiences. So, we’ve done that very successfully. What benefits us for doing that is we actually see a much higher participation rate because it’s a signal to the members that like, “Okay, get ready. You’re about to answer something about this one thing that you love.” So, we recognize the value in doing it for our big brands, such as Harry Potter and DC. We don’t want to do it for all of them because the upkeep of a sub-community really does require a very high-traffic pipeline of activities. So, if you do [it 00:09:36] for something very niche, it may not pay off, and it might be more work than it’s worth. So, those two big ones have really turned out to be a great decision. So, it’s great. We get 90-plus percent of participation rate compared to the more generic Warner Bros. Research that we sent, so it’s been a great decision. 

Karen: There’s so much going on that feels magical [laugh]—speaking of Harry Potter—so much that feels magical about what you’re doing. And I also want you to talk about sort of the global expansion of this community because I think a lot of businesses that have recognized this, they’re here in the US, right, and they haven’t necessarily taken it globally, but you have. So, I’d love to peek a little bit under the hood about how you’ve done that and where you’ve gone with it.

Sofia: Absolutely. I mean, a big motivation for launching the panel, you know, in other territories has just been to service the demand of research that we get, right? Like, it’s meant to be a cost savings tool, which it absolutely is, so if we see that there’s a lot of demand to cover a different territory—which our group does—we plan for that and do the best that we can. So, like I said, the A-List is actually not the only global panel that we have in the company, so we’re able to cross-share sample with our partners in the other communities that have different brands attached to them. But for the purposes of the A-List, it had always been in the English speaking territory, so in US, Canada, and UK because that was an easier, you know, management of them just because of the language. But then we recognize the appetite in other territories. So, we are in Japan, and we recently launched in France and Germany. So, we’re a little new there, but we’re growing it very quickly, and we’re very excited for all the research we’ve been able to do so far. 

Karen: Is there a number, by the way, when we think about size, like, just how many people are participating? Like, as you’re talking, I’m sitting there thinking, like, “Gosh, I don’t know if you and I discussed the, like, total number of people in this system?” [laugh]. 

Sofia: Yeah, we have over 45,000 members in the A-List. And then, like I said, we’re set up, like, our sister communities, you know, there’s, like, a Max community, and then a bunch of others that do excellent work as well. So, we call ourselves the Mega Community [laugh] where we’re able to sort of net ourselves out. And I think the head count for that, it’s like over 100,000. I don’t have the most recent one, but the A-List is over 45,000 right now.

Karen: Yeah, it’s just amazing. And it just goes to speak to fandom, right, and just how important that is, and how incredible that is. I mean, you must learn not just about products, but you must learn so much about fandom in general. 

Sofia: We do. And it’s almost a safe space to get early reads, sometimes. You know, the community is closed, so they don’t interact outside social or anything like that. It’s really meant to be, like, the research tool that it is, but we do create space for them to provide feedback beyond the surveys in, like, a personal hub tool, so we get early comments, and reads, and ways to get—you know, it’s not out in the open, but we can see it there. We treat it, like, as a marketing tool in the sense of how we plan to share information, so we’ll drop trailers as well, and do all the things that go public online, and we can see in a controlled environment how they feel. So, it’s very helpful for keeping tabs on that as well.

Karen: Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And there’s so much potential with what you could pull up. And I don’t want to take us too far off track, but I keep thinking about the fact that you said you’re also sharing it elsewhere. But you know, do you pick up on, kind of, trends that you’re, like, I think there’s something to this, and maybe we should consider that. Like, is there that kind of trend sharing or consumer behavior sharing that isn’t really meeting an objective, but it’s just a little nugget that’s interesting? Like, to me, that’s the fun part about being a researcher, right, is when you see things that you’re like, “Oh, there’s something to this.” Just curious, pu—you know.

Sofia: Yeah, I think the best way to think about it, to me, is it’s really meant to be also for agile research. You know, sometimes you do want to have more robust work done, and maybe that’s not appropriate to run in a community for a number of reasons, but when you really need to get quick reads and things like that—polls—we definitely leverage that. And for the most part, our research will be around content movies or series, but we will do, you know, like, economic uncertainty polls sometimes. Like, that’s a big hot topic right now, or any other thing that you just want to get a sense of, like, how are people doing about this right now? So, because we’re able to do it very quickly and sort of treat it as, like, we just want to get a, you know, a read of this from you today, like, people are usually pretty receptive and participants. So, it’s helpful to just have for those kinds of quick questions too.

Karen: Yeah, I love it. And that is truly the benefit of a community like that, is that agility, the ability to just go in and ask something on a fairly quick turnaround that, you know, could inform some strategic thinking happening. So, you know, I’m a big fan of these communities, like I said, I was running one myself, but certainly not to this scale. But there’s this catch with yours that I hadn’t really heard of before that we talked about, and I’m talking about your reward system or lack thereof. So, kind of explain, um, [laugh]—just explain what you’re doing, and then we’ll get into, you know, the philosophy behind it?

Sofia: Yeah. Well, I think what you mean is that this is not an incentivized panel in the way that, you know, you join, you accrue points, and you get paid, or maybe you get rewards or gift cards or something like that. It has never been set up that way from its genesis. It really operated right off of people’s, you know, passion and willingness to participate, and it stayed that way until today. It does create some downsides, right, that we try to build into the experience of it all for the members. So, it’s not unrewarded. We just try to incentivize in different ways. So, we do provide, like, our monthly share-backs, where people get to see how what they said actually created impact, you know, to an extent that we can share. And then we also try to do giveaways when we can. We partner with different people in the company who are able to help us, maybe with in-kind rewards. And we also recently gamified the experience to create a little competitiveness. So, in the same way that you would have leaderboards in different, you know, games or other experiences, the more participation the person can climb up the ranks and get, you know, a different tier of member label, and that also comes with certain benefits for them. But at the end of the day, the promise and the agreement when someone joins is purely, like, you’re here because you want to be, and we’d love to have you. You can leave at any time, and there’s no incentive at that point. So, it’s interesting, there’s natural churn, which we work through every year, and we find active ways to keep recruiting fresh and alive. So, we’ll recruit through own-and-operated places, like, you know, stores that we have in certain cities. We’ll do social recruiting. We’ll do CRM recruiting. So, all of this is necessary to be able to maintain the way the community runs right now, which is unincentivized.

Karen: I mean, I just love it so much. And I love all the creative thinking that you’ve put into how to reward people, if not incentivizing them. And again, it speaks to fandom, right? That people want to be there because they like being an insider on some level or they it just like being a part of a family that you create with the brands that you have. So, I find that part of it just incredibly fascinating.

Sofia: And I see it all the time in the comments and the research. We also do focus groups sometimes, where we recruit from our panel, and we get to actually see them. And we have members that have been around for, like, ten-plus years, and they’re still here, and they love sharing their thoughts. And you can see in the comments that they post sometimes, like, “This is so different from when you know this one movie came out ten years ago.” And we get the good with the bad. And that’s kind of the whole point, right? Like, you want to hear from people that want to share their opinion, instead of just be clicking through to get a, you know, a $5 something for a Starbucks or whatever it is.

Karen: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a good point, and it just goes to show you that you’re doing it well if people are that committed, and your response rates are, you know, that great. So, kudos to you. Gosh, before we move in to kind of like, talk about some of the other work that you’re doing, and you know, I did take up half our time together just talking about that community, anything else about the community that you wish I had kind of stopped on because I’m sure I’m forgetting things, but I have this collective knowledge now about this. I’m just in awe of it.

Sofia: No, I mean, thank you for asking about it. I’m always happy to talk about the community. It’s something we’re very proud of, and we’re changing it every year. We’re trying to, like, innovate where we can, so it’s always a good learning experience. It’s not something that I knew how to do before coming into this job, and it’s been, like, incredible to see all the opportunities that have presented themselves in making this innovative and exciting for consumers. So, I’m always happy to talk about the panel [laugh]. 

Karen: Cool. Cool, yeah, good stuff there. So, let’s talk about other things that you do because we did such a deep dive, and you’d think it’s a full-time job just managing that alone, right? But yet—

Sofia: I know. 

Karen: —you’re also involved in some other initiatives in the research space. So, you know, before we dig into any specifics, but big picture, what are the other types of research that you’re doing there? 

Sofia: Well, it really can be something very tactical and simple that’s very maybe tied to a title. But then we also go broad, and at least for the work that we support for our stakeholders, we do try to do, like, a landscape read throughout the year. I think the industry that we’re in, especially the big studios, where there’s a lot of big shifts happening, let’s just say, so it’s more important than ever to just know where our consumer trends are gearing towards. We constantly talk about things like share of time or consumer journeys. We are part of the streaming wars, in a sense, and that’s also affecting how everyone decides what to watch, where to watch, and our content is caught in the middle of that. So, we can do very, you know, simple—at least in our team, we do very simple research, as you know, do we need this version A or B of this one movie one sheet, as opposed to, let’s talk about, like, how Gen Zs have shifted their attention into TikTok, or whatever it is that we need to answer. So, that’s not a very good answer, maybe, but I think it’s just, like, we do, like, the very tactical work and the very strategic work almost equally. 

Karen: You know, one of the projects that I really want to talk to you about that I know that you were involved in, is actually something that’s going to be presented at IIEX North America. So, I think, you know, this will be airing right around that time, right? The question I have is—now that you’re unable to go—what can you tell us, kind of about the initiative and what your partner will be presenting on stage with maybe video cameos from you? But it was very special research.

Sofia: Yes, absolutely. And I’m very sad that I won’t be able to join Mark, but Mark Drummond, he’ll be there presenting, and we’ll have a little clip from me just introducing the presentation. But part of the landscape work that I described earlier that we do, we really wanted to tap into, what is it about nostalgia—which is having a big resurgence; I’m sure everyone’s been talking about it and hearing about it in other events—what is it about nostalgia that it drives people to revisit content that may not be new? And that’s a big one for us because we support content that is in the catalog. So, we have a lot of information from performance and other data streams that help us answer that question, but we really wanted to get at the answers through something more inherent in people’s reactions. So, we partnered with a great company called Neural Sense to do a biometric study where we can propose the scenario of browsing when you’re deciding—and this is more like at home when your usual sit down to watch something, kind of, that’s the occasion that we’re going for—when they’re browsing through and being presented with different options, are they reacting differently—biologically, right, when you see, like, something that’s a new show or a new movie and it has certain talent on it, or maybe something that’s older and pops up for you. We had done some prep work ahead of it, again, from other research that we’d done because this was kind of like a multi-faced question that we were trying to answer, and we found it really interesting, this whole concept of how today, it’s never been more equal or equivalized between old content and new content. There’s this blurred lines of when you open up your Netflix account or your Prime account, or whatever it is that you’re looking at online—I’m sorry, at home—content is being presented to you right next to each other, and the perception of old and new is very indistinct. So, it’ll be part of the presentation. In the beginning, you’ll see some really interesting charts. For example, content discovery, a few years ago, people were more likely discovering something that was new at the time, that’s something that had been old for a while. Content discovery today, it’s almost equally possible that you’re discovering something that is completely old, right? Like an example of one, right, myself, I was too young to watch The Last Wing when it was airing, not because I couldn’t, just because I didn’t care about it. But I discovered it through Netflix. And so, at the time when I discovered it a couple years ago, three years ago, it was obviously not new, but it was presented to me as part of this mix that everything you want to know. So, we used our study with Neural Sense to recreate this experience of browsing through your presented options when you sit down to watch something, and we have some really interesting findings that helped us basically corroborate what we were finding in the data already. So, I hope everyone gets to see it. And I’m sorry I will not be there [laugh]. But you’re in excellent hands with Mark.

Karen: I’m sure. And by the time this do—I checked our production schedule. I’m like, this is launching well after we’re done with North America. So, for the listeners, they’re going to be like, “Oh, dang, I missed that one.” But they’re hearing this, so it’s pretty cool. And what’s interesting to me about that is I have been hearing about, sort of, kind of, your mental state of mind, or your emotional state of mind when you tune into an old, familiar show—that’s been in sort of news for me lately, if you—you know, like, there’s something very kind of relaxing, soothing, calming, if you’re watching something that—Friends, is that show for me, for example. Like, I’ve seen every episode probably several times, you know? And it’s just a good show to have on if I have no mental bandwidth to take in something new, right? It always delivers, it always makes me smile and laugh, it was… you know, it was that show for me. So, I just think that must be really interesting to, kind of, see how people are having these biometric reactions when they’re choosing a show. I don’t know if anything like that came up, or if I’m way off base, but that’s what I was picturing.

Sofia: You’re absolutely right. And there’s a great slide that Mark will show that basically says that people that had lower mood ratings going into the experience were more likely to pick familiar content. That was what you just described, so it’s almost like it’s the antidote to, you know, feeling low. So yeah, that was exciting to see [laugh]. 

Karen: Yeah, I wonder the [laugh]—for me, again, I can’t help but relate to myself in some of this conversation, but I wonder what would prompt me every time I tuned into a Harry Potter marathon, and be, like, oh, good, Harry Potter will just be on all weekend. Because for a while there that was hitting me all the time, and I was like, another weekend of Harry Potter on my television. So, [laugh] anyway. I digress. I digress. So, here’s a question because if you think about it, you could talk to people and ask people about their state of mind, but this particular study that you did, you know, it was a different way of getting about that information. So, how do you, kind of, view the juxtaposition of two very different types of research that you may do, you know, something that’s neurometrics and something that’s a more traditional method, what would lead you to do one versus another? How are you making the decision about which path to take?

Sofia: I feel like you have to be a little bit methodology agnostic. You really just want to find the best way to answer the question in the most reliable way. We also like to say in our team that we like to try break things a little bit so, you know, I know historically, we’ve done biometric work before where it’s very tactical, and like, you know, you’ll have an ad, and trying to look at the GSR and, like, the measurements, and so you can be very corrective on the content that people are seeing, but this was very experimental in the sense that, like, everyone had a unique experience. It wasn’t the replicated blanks for every single respondent. Like, there were a lot of variables that we needed to control for. And I give Matt kudos to Neural Sense for, you know, being game and letting us push, like, their setup of the study to the limits for that. But that’s what we mean with, like, we like to break things a little bit. Like, have we ever tried using this one tool in this way? And maybe you’re not supposed to, but like, what if we tried it this way? We did—this is a completely different study—we ran need states work a couple years ago—that was kind of a very important piece that we worked all year—and we tried to use implicit association testing for it. Not, we tried; we actually used implicit association testing, but we had to develop the questions to fit into the need states we’ve built on already, and we called them the micro-needs. So, the qualitative work we’ve done before kind of boiled down. I’m sure a lot of people have done work in this space very similarly, where you can categorize eight major needs, days—or six or however many—we wanted to capture it at a survey platform using implicit tools that could measure that speed. But you can’t go out and ask people, do you feel comfort—do you—like, it’s really was not very consumer facing. So, we broke down our needs into micro-needs that would feed into that. So, that was a little bit of, like, creative thinking that we tried to do with that as well. So, that’s what I mean where, you know, is there a new way to do this that could help us get at what we need?

Karen: It sounds like it’s very much sort of, again, creative thinking to reiterate that, but you know, openness to the new methods, or you know, open-mindedness, perhaps. I’m trying to figure out the greater lesson for other brands, right, who may not be in the entertainment space, but they may be listening, thinking, you know, should I tap into some of this? What are some lessons about the way you’re doing work that you think are more universally applied? And maybe it’s just that, maybe it’s creative thinking, but maybe it’s more.

Sofia: I think it’s a little bit of experimentation, always, going back to what you’re used to. But of course, you want to set up something that you’re trying, especially if it’s for the first time, to be sound and reliable. So, we’d never do these things, like, in a vacuum. So, we always also have, like, our traditional methods to accompany and help support. I think, a lot of people, myself included, sometimes we’re used to just, you know, we run the research that we need in primary, you know, like, whether it’s a survey or whatever it is, and we just use that to build out the deliverable or, like, the story that you’re going to pass on. But we really try to say, like, this is just going to be part of it. Like, it’s never going to be just the one thing. Nothing ever lives in a vacuum, so be sure to bring in other ways to provide context. And that’s where, you know, maybe an experimental piece can be part of the whole story that you present, and then you’ll have, like, the more recognizable or standardized work to be shown alongside that. So, I think that’s a good safety net to keep in mind when you’re trying to experiment or be innovative. 

Karen: Yeah. I love that. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, you definitely are setting yourselves up for a bit of that, you know, agile mindset as well. So, there’s a lot forward thinking. And I don’t know if that’s your industry, or if that’s because you, you know, kind of sit with innovation as part of your world, but agility, creative thinking, experimentation, that all just tells a story, right?

Sofia: Yeah. And we haven’t used the magic word, but AI is definitely changing things for everyone right now, so that’s also a big part, to definitely experiment with AI and find the value and how we can, like, make you more efficient, but also, like, how can it help the research, right? I’m excited to try things like synthetic personas, and you know, all the work that people are doing to really elevate the existing tools that we have. So, it’s a whole new world, that’s for sure [laugh]. 

Karen: Yeah. Well, in other conversations I had, I just was speaking to somebody, a big European brand, who’s going to actually be joining us on our IIEX Europe stage, talking about his mindset of that. Very similar, like, you have to experiment, and he’s actually, personally in his department, kind of spearheading some experimentation at no cost, just using, like, free tools to then make use cases to, you know, kind of get approval to roll it out and scale it larger. So, I think that that mindset is incredibly helpful when you’re that person, right? And I think he called it, like, tinkering. He’s like, “I’m tinkering with this because I want to make a use case for, you know, the powers that be that are going to give me authority to then say, okay, launch something like that.” 

Sofia: Love that. That’s a great idea to how to put it. You know, you definitely want to be able to experiment as much as you can. 

Karen: So, kind of, thinking forward into the future. So, you’re going to be doing some more experimentation, that’s just in your DNA, it seems. So, maybe with AI, maybe with some other things. What else is on the horizon for you, either, you know, personal projects you’re working on or you’re excited about, special projects [laugh] you’re excited about, or even within your community, anything coming up that’s got you kind of like jazzed about?

Sofia: Well again, I don’t mean to fall back into what everyone’s talking about, but the AI of it all, I think I’m very excited to try a lot of new tools there. Going back to the panel, I also feel like it’s never been more important to have a human, guaranteed panel [laugh] like that. We talked about how it’s not incentivized. It really clears us to not be at risk from having AI fraud, which I’ve heard has been an optic this year. And, you know, panel providers and just survey sample. It’s really crazy to see how LLMs can circumvent a lot of the existing red herrings and traps that we—you know, security measures we have for quality survey sample control. But having an unincentivized panel, there’s no reason for anyone to actually go in and do that. So, we are definitely valuing the panel more today, the A-List, and we’re much more aware of the risks that AI can bring in that sense. But the benefits it can bring, I think we want to be even more agile than we are right now, using AI and qualitative work in as many places as we can. So, I don’t have anything I can speak to right now, but I am definitely excited to be trying some new things in the next year. 

Karen: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting, you bring up the point about quality, but really, just earlier today, having a conversation about what, all of this, sort of, era of potential AI fraud, and at the same time, when we’re building and experimenting with synthetic data sets, like, how important it is that what you’re building is full of integrity, and therefore then becomes reliable. So, it seems to be a very critical time for all of this, right, for quality of data that’s being inputted, and quality of participation, quality of the sample or panel that you’re using, like, it all feels really critical right now.

Sofia: Absolutely. 

Karen: Yeah. So, here’s a question for you. Just imagine that you have some of the Harry Potter magic in you, and you’re able to kind of think about the future of insights and make some predictions, or you know, maybe you’re like Professor Trelawney looking into a teacup, and you’re, you know, reading the leaves, and all of that is just metaphorical for what do you think, kind of with a futurist hat on, what do you think is the future of insights in our industry? 

Sofia: Oh, that’s a good question. I think the future is a little bit here. I think we definitely—a great phrase that I heard, I think at TMRE a couple years back was, we were not going to be replaced by AI, but we’ll be replaced by people who use AI. So, I think the future looks really great. I think we definitely want to stay very open to picking up new skills and trusting that the tools that we have today are going to help us optimize the use of our time. I think something very refreshing that I heard in a recent conference—I don’t know how much people get to go to these things—but after a few events that I went, it was like, “AI this, AI that.” And it got a little like, okay, enough with the AI. But then one of the events, it was very human-centric, and return to humans. So, I think we are valuable. Our input is really, really valuable. We just need to coexist with these tools and kind of like, let them lift us up. So, I think a lot of people might be nervous about how the technology developments could be something risky for us. I think learning to live and let them enhance you could be a very big positive. So, to me, the future is very positive [laugh]. I intentionally keep that mindset, just because, why not [laugh]?

Karen: Yeah, because why not? There’s so many possibilities. I share that optimism as well, and I love the way you framed it of, you know, let’s let it lift us up because I think that’s, you know, an ultimate goal. So Sofia, thank you so much. I mean, this has been just a fascinating conversation for me, I hope for our listeners as well, although I’m really sure it is; there’s a lot of people who are going to either see themselves in some of what you’re doing, or think about more possibilities, so I’m just so grateful. If anybody in our audience wants to reach out to you or find you, where can they learn more about you?

Sofia: I’m on LinkedIn, so they can reach out to me that way. And thank you so much. This was so great. I really appreciate you guys keeping me even after I had to unfortunately, not be able to travel. So, I hope everyone has a great event.

Karen: Oh, thank you, yes. So yeah, because this is airing at the end of May, I will be able to confidently say, it was a great event [laugh]. 

Sofia: [laugh].

Karen: Thank you so much. And yes, we’re sorry we will miss you, but we’ll get you on our stage, just perhaps next year, because that’s already—

Sofia: I hope so, yeah.

Karen: Again, Sofia, thank you so much, and many thanks to our editor, Big Bad Audio for everything that you do behind the scenes to make sure that we sound sharp. And of course, to all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in. It’s a pleasure to bring people and stories to you, to help you in your everyday lives and careers. So, have a great one, everybody. Until next time, bye-bye.