Private Equity, AI Agents, and the Future of Consumer Insights

Check out the full episode below! Enjoy The Exchange? Don't forget to tune in live Friday at 12 pm EST on the Greenbook LinkedIn and Youtube Channel!

 

Private equity is reshaping ad tech with billion-dollar deals like Integral Ad Science's $1.9B acquisition, while AI-powered research tools from companies like Morning Consult promise to democratize consumer insights. We explore the race to build AI-first devices, the growing importance of data integrity, and why transaction-linked data is becoming the new gold standard for understanding consumers.

From Google's autonomous web vision to the balance between human creativity and artificial intelligence, this episode reveals the strategic moves and breakthrough technologies defining the future of consumer insights.

Many thanks to our producer, Karley Dartouzos. 

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Transcript

Lenny Murphy: We don't get the countdown.

Karen Lynch: Hi everybody. How are you? Hello everybody.

Lenny Murphy: As a reminder, we are recording this on a Thursday afternoon before Karen heads out to Prague for ESOMAR. Yes. You know, it's my first ESOMAR Congress.

Karen Lynch: So, um, I'm a little bit, um, you'd think that like, Oh yeah, I've got this, but I have a little bit of like, I'm a little bit apprehensive. A bit of anxiety about the fact that I've never been to this event. I don't know what to expect. So, you know, that just always happens to me when it's a new to me event. So, um, if you're listening, I'll see you next week. Come over and say, Hey, I listened to you last week and it's going to be okay.

Lenny Murphy: We give credit where credit's due as far as puts on, uh, there, their events are different than everybody else's, including IX. Um, the, uh, uh, they're usually really interesting. Um, They're highly, highly, highly curated. They have people, at least they used to, come a few days before to practice in front of a panel who gives them constructive feedback before the event. So it's really interesting. I'm sure that you will have a good time.

Karen Lynch: When I was very involved in the QRCA back in the day, they did a lot of Speaker coaching and Speaker mentoring, and there was a lot of people volunteering And I imagine it's the same at ESOMAR, like people volunteer to strengthen these presentations for others when you are part of an association like that. And I just think, you know, hats off to the volunteers who helped make that happen. Because I was a volunteer and I just kept thinking, you know, this is something that I do because I care about human beings.

Lenny Murphy: So. Yep. Cool.

Karen Lynch: 100%.

Lenny Murphy: We thought about trying to pull that off with IAX. And to your point, we have volunteers and, you know, employees that have enough, we couldn't pull that off.

Karen Lynch: You know, what volunteers are different from employees, it's, we're not an association, right? It is a very different, you know, kind of business model. And I'm sure there would be people in our community that really just would want to help us out in that regard. But we are not the kind of organization that can ask that of people.

Lenny Murphy: Right. Yeah. So enjoy it. Now with that, for the audience, we 're literally trying to get out the door to get to the airport. So, uh, and there's a lot to cover. This was a, this was a, a, a pretty busy and big week in the inside space.

Karen Lynch: You know, I feel like we do say that every week that it's, there is always a lot going on, but, um, do you remember at one point we thought we could do this every other week and then we're like, yeah, no, that's not too much. It's too much.

Lenny Murphy: And I think it's only going to continue, um, uh, to accelerate, but why don't we, why don't we jump in? So, I know you and I both, there are a couple of things like, oh, now that's something to talk about.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, well, start with this. You really are tapped into a lot of the advertising and media measurement. So talk about Integral Ad Science. I've never heard of this organization, so this was all new to me, even though I did my research.

Lenny Murphy: But tell everybody what happened to them. So IAS, they are a kind of media measurement optimization platform, um, the, uh, use a lot of science, uh, in, in optimizing advertising and metrics public company, uh, just got taken private by Nova cap $1.9 billion. Um, so private equity is making a big play in the insight space. I mean, they, they, again, they, they sit kind of more of the ARF, you know, type of category. Uh, but absolutely a research company at its core. They probably wouldn't identify themselves that way, but they are. And yeah, it just shows more private equity interest in this space. And what's also interesting, I think big public companies like that don't have a lot of wiggle room to transform the business. So private equity going for a deal like that to come off being public, to go with private equity, gives them room to, some breathing room to try and transform the business. So I suspect we'll see next a whole lot of AI and changes to business models, et cetera, et cetera, to adapt to that. Really challenging to do when you're public and you have shareholders who are just whole new to it. Private equity has a window on how they want to see these things. So I suspect it was a very strategic move to say, Yeah, you know what, we can make these changes. And, and you're going to come out a hell of a lot stronger and more profitable. After you do this, they can adapt to that.

Karen Lynch: That's my guess. Yeah, it'll be really interesting. Spoiler alert, friends, when we share one of the articles at the end, sort of about AI in general and investment in AI and, and how, how unlikely it is that so many people will see this kind of money as an investment. Like there's this, it's like, there's going to be a lot of people investing.

Lenny Murphy: Uh, not everybody will get one, you know, kind of a one deal, but, but I can tell you from just things I'm aware of, we, there's more pretty big deals to be announced.

Karen Lynch: Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Um, there's, uh, there's a lot of money primed to flow into the space, there's gonna be some startup money coming in that you're gonna go, what the Maybe not like Qualtrics level, if you remember that day, but still pretty damn shocking. Some of the numbers that I'm hearing are gonna be announced soon. Yeah, that's cool. Well, I can't wait for that.

Karen Lynch: But meanwhile, we've promised everybody that we'd be talking about, you know, about devices more and here we are with another week where devices are in the news, right? So there's a smartphone startup called Nothing, and their product, by the way, is called Phone, which I found really interesting. They raised $200 million in Series C, led by Tiger Global, at a $1.3 billion valuation, and they plan to launch an AI-first device next year.

Lenny Murphy: Not even a device yet, right? Not even in the market yet. Not even there.

Karen Lynch: It's not even there. But what I think is interesting is as a company, they are, they're, they're kind of they're starting with with design, right? They're starting with which I feel like that sounds familiar. Didn't Apple want to start with design as well. But even that now is a little bit cliche to a lot of users who want a different design. They don't want to be, they don't want to have something that looks just like them and they want their own unique design to it. So that's why these products are actually doing really well. Anyway, it's interesting to think about AI first, which we're going to hear more and more. We will hear about it later today.

Lenny Murphy: First. Yeah, AI first. Yeah, so I wish we had a hint on what that was going to look like, But with that, the OpenAI deal with the Johnny says name We're going to see new devices entering the market pretty quickly. Yeah, next year should be interesting. Yeah.

Karen Lynch: Yeah Yeah, so we have the super intelligence newsletter that will share the link to that kind of talks a little bit about the rise of wearable AI and smarter agents moving beyond screens but to other things we can just speculate like really it's just think about earpieces to think about you know it's not just glasses but earpieces could be more smart rings and watches and pins and what was that appliances appliances all about that like for your smart home like it's gonna be an interesting time so yeah I mean think about the appliance thing that actually that what that's probably we're gonna start seeing that your refrigerator right has sense it detects the product, and oh, you're out of milk, let's place your order for a Kroger pickup, right, whatever.

Lenny Murphy: You know? Yeah, we've seen some of that.

Karen Lynch: There's some great innovation happening in that space where you have smart, you know, the internet of things and some smart appliances in your home, but I'm imagining a use case. I woke up early today because I wanted to be able to sleep on the flight tonight to Prague, right? So I woke up earlier than usual. My coffee maker is not set for 5 a.m. At 4, 6 a.m., and my very first thought when I wake up is, hmm, I wish I had remembered to set the coffee maker earlier. I see a future where I could say, I need the coffee maker now, and it will happen, and I could say that from up here, I don't have to be down there, is what I'm getting at. Like, I think I can say it out loud, and the things in my house will indeed make it happen.

Lenny Murphy: Yes, well, and you know, give it two years, and it'll be, you'll be talking to your robot.

Karen Lynch: My little guy.

Lenny Murphy: It's you know, yeah, it's a little guy, you know, I'll have one anyway, yeah Oh, I don't think we even included that in this but the for whatever if you're a fan of the movie of the show Westworld And if you remember in the beginning they were like 3d printing that looked like bodies of the robots, you know They're made out of silicone stuff very much like the alien or the the robots in the alien franchise the sits, right? Yeah, there's a company doing that now you know that their hydraulics using water has a heart pump. Anyway, we don't have to go in all that.

Karen Lynch: But just don't give them first. So they're petable. Like let's keep it nice because if you have her and I can pet her, then we are in a lot of data diggers because I love seeing that data diggers is launching a quarterly study to track adoption usage and sentiment of emerging tech technologies, including AI and robotics, right? But virtual and augmented reality, 3D printing, bio-integrated technologies. It's going to be, you know, I think it says it's US-based consumer research being conducted, and I'm excited to see what comes out of that initiative. I think it's great. You know, it's good to see, and I'm always curious, right, whenever we talk about these sorts of things.

Lenny Murphy: Yep, absolutely. Hats off to DayDiggers. Please send us the report.

Karen Lynch: Keep us posted, theexchangeofgreenbook.org, right? Well, that will be one we will want to read for real.

Lenny Murphy: It will be. So do we want to talk about Instacart?

Karen Lynch: You know, I do want to talk about Instacart. This is what, on the pre-show, when Lenny and I were chatting, I was like, we really should start with this, because I'm a loyal Instacarter. We've talked about this before. It started during COVID, where I was like, oh, sure, I'll have groceries show up to my house. I mean, I just ordered it yesterday. I'm like, you know, just too busy. You can't work. 12-hour day and still get food on your table without being exhausted all the time, right? So, we are in chaos because of the painting. It doesn't matter. My point is, I'm a loyal Instacart fan, and it's worth it to me sometimes. I assess whether I should run to the store, whether I should pay the surcharge, which I know exists. But now we're finding out that Instacart has introduced this consumer insights portal. Of course they have, giving brands access to that shopper intelligence and purchasing. And if you don't use Instacart, what's fascinating to me about this, and then I'll let you go off and I'll get off my bandwagon here is I choose what store from Instacart. So when I go on Instacart, I can decide, is this a stop and shop order? Is this a, you know, is this a Wegmans order? Is this Stu Leonard's order? Like, or like I choose from within the app what I'm in the mood for. And that is a decision-making thing that is very interesting because it's all just showing up at me. It has nothing to do with convenience. It has nothing to do with, you know, some people might, it might have something to do with pricing or maybe it has to do with assortment or whatever. But for me, that is an emotional decision that I make at the moment. Yesterday, I was like, I'm headed out of town. I need some of the comfort food that I can only get at Stew Leonard's. If you're from this region, you know what Stew Leonard's is all about.

Lenny Murphy: I need to name Stu Leonard's.

Karen Lynch: You know, it's got a great story. But um, and there's only a few locations. It's a very Anyway, it's very iconic in my area But the point is like I know my son loves We love the milk that Stu Leonard's milk and because it's a dairy and it we used to be able to see them producing it right there back in the day on the premises and you know We love to get some of their baked goods. Their bakery is like whoo when you go there. It's so good Anyway, I'm going off, right? Because the point is, I know I make an emotional decision when I choose Stu Leonard's on my Instacart app. And I know I'm spending more, and I know that I'm paying a surcharge, but it's very deliberate. And I think that that data is going to be really interesting for a certain type of shopper. I just find it fascinating. We knew that Walmart was unlocking this, then we talked about other groceries, other retailers are unlocking this, This one can unlock it across the store choice, which is what, that is what differentiates it. It's not just Walmart shoppers or Kroger shoppers.

Lenny Murphy: This is Instagram who are choosing from all of them. Yes, I agree. I don't have much to add. Funny anecdote, I was in a meeting with the Walmart Scintilla team yesterday when this was announced. So it was a topic of conversation. Because I could choose Walmart.

Karen Lynch: I'm just we just don't really have one near us. So like, it's not a store that I'd like to drive to any Walmart.

Lenny Murphy: So it's not my, it's not a thing. Yeah. But the takeaway is, so this goes back to the data quality. Yeah. This is first party, high quality data. Yeah, period, period. So, you know, your customer, I mean, it's linked into your from the app to payment systems. There's no fraud in this. It is the real deal.

Karen Lynch: And it also connects. I happen to have the New York Times cooking and it links so that if I'm looking at a recipe on New York Times cooking, I can feed it into Instacart and it does a grocery list for me. So those are already connected. Yes.

Lenny Murphy: And I'm sure there's more in your, I'm sure if we dug into the term service on the Instacart app, that there's other things that's capturing as well. Yes. Yes.

Karen Lynch: So I'm just saying like that level of personalization, Instacart knows more about me than I would say anywhere else. Certainly knows a lot about your consumption habits.

Lenny Murphy: It sure does. It sure does. Yeah. And the takeaway, sorry. It probably could say, no, no, no.

Karen Lynch: It could probably say, oh, her kids must be home. Based on the size of the orders, right? Based on that. I mean, for real, like it knows.

Lenny Murphy: I just think that it's Friday night and she's just ordering Stu Leonard's. I'm on a business trip tomorrow.

Karen Lynch: I'm telling you. Um, it's just a matter of time before it asks me what brought you here today. Like just give me a single qualitative pop up question. I'll answer it. Now they've got that to know that that's next. It should, it should. Wouldn't that be fascinating to understand the, Hey, can you just take a second? Ask me why Stu Leonard's today. You know, one sentence. I'm kidding.

Lenny Murphy: Next. Yes, for our supplier audience. So what I want to just make sure to drive home is that this is nothing new. Companies that have data have been using that data in a variety of ways for a long time. Dunhumby, right with Tesco, Kroger, right? That's until I ran for a few years. And before that, but they don't talk about this as a consumer Yeah, right. I will bet you we're going to see Instagram and IX. Yeah, yeah. These companies recognize that they have a unique asset, and a unique capability. Effectively, they have a panel for all intents and purposes of their users. And they have to unlock the engagement, which is easy to do, hey, you want $5 off your next order, take the survey, right?

Karen Lynch: Whatever the case may be.

Lenny Murphy: Easy, easy. So these things, we're going to see more and more of that and it's driven by data quality. Yeah.

Karen Lynch: And I think like I had shared with you and I think this audience before, you know, when I had been doing work for 8451 at one point and I was, it was in the beverage category and it was an online board and I, I had like clients in the virtual backroom from both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola and, um, cured duck pepper. And I was like, this is fun, you know, cause I know like all these companies, brands are paying attention because they're all invited in because it's 84.51. It seems to me that this type of shopper intelligence can be accessed. It will be accessed by everyone and therefore you better believe your competitors are in there already. So the demand for it is going to be great because like I want to know, especially because they have, I think it said in the, in this launch, like 1800 plus retail partners are in there.

Lenny Murphy: Yep. All of them with that data, because they also want to know what the competitors are doing. And I didn't look, but my bet is that the model is a subscription model, and probably not an inexpensive one. And because Instacart is inherently a tech platform, my bet is that it's all AI-ified, which is probably a segue to the other.

Karen Lynch: Great segue, especially with the subscription model. Yes, why don't you go ahead and share about Morning Consult.

Lenny Murphy: Yes, so Morning Consult, they unveiled their AI division, three new AI agents slated for release. We've talked about morning consult, there's actually an interview that I did with Michael Ramlett, it's gonna be released in the next couple weeks, as part of the CEO series. And, you know, these guys. So, you know, I like Michael, I like what they're what they're doing. Set that aside, the model that they've done, they collect, you know, a gajillion surveys annually on a variety of- It's a hundred million surveys. A hundred million. A hundred million surveys. They have this dataset and now it's all AI-ified. They've said that they're releasing the Bloomberg Terminal for Insights. Yeah. They're doing it. It's fundamentally a subscription basis. They have access to all this data, etc. Now they have a variety of AI tools and the Gentic tools now. Not just a prompt for new analysis, but that executes and does things with research, including pulling in external data and augmenting. This is the model.

Karen Lynch: What's cool about it is, and so Michael came to the EU and he joined us on stage for one of the last presentations, kind of blew everybody's mind when he kind of demonstrated the possibilities, it was that. He had met with us up in the staff room and was kind of talking to us about it all as well. And I think that when you see it, you realize now this is the intelligence of AI, this is the actual intelligence of businesses, they don't need custom insights and all that. That is not what I'm saying, but this level of AI powered intelligence is really going to be empowering because of the way it can seemingly disparate data sources. Yes. It's something that humans cannot do. Yes. Right.

Lenny Murphy: Application of, of AI. So the, uh, and it's cause it's unlocking what the buyers want. Buyers want the answer. Right. Yup. Uh, and the, and we can get into, you know, there's certainly, you know, there's other stuff I expect them to do, you know, because it is survey based, and we know the challenges, surveys, blah, blah, right. And then they'll get there. And so everybody else, but for the speed of insight to inform the decision for the client, that's the bottom line. Yeah. And these applications that they are building, is what everybody should be doing. Because that's how you win, you win by delivering the highest fidelity answer that is both prescriptive and predictive to your client as close to real time as you possibly can. Is the tool that unlocks that overall. Hats off to them. What's interesting is they were part of the research for a long time. They did their own thing. Yeah, I'll come back.

Karen Lynch: It's like Qualtrics, they came back too.

Lenny Murphy: That's true. That's true. I really liked- Part of it is understanding people, right?

Karen Lynch: Yep.

Lenny Murphy: Well, speaking of understanding people, Know Search introduced their indicators, custom GPTs trained on validated research and buyer psychology to create interactive persona-like tools. This is really interesting. It is a hot topic. We were going back and forth on Slack earlier. We got to define synthetic and totally agree. We do. There's lots of different variations of that. Type of applications have built on validated models, psychological models applied to personas. That's based off of, you know, real data. Is it the same?

Karen Lynch: You could real time like if you're a client of theirs, it looks like you could real time they will build a custom one for you and your segmentation.

Lenny Murphy: Yes, seems self explanatory.

Karen Lynch: However, what they've done here, and it's worth checking out is they've communicated real really well what they're doing. They're like, let's make it so that it is easy for the user to understand what we're doing for our clients. That's up to them. That's how I interpreted this. I'm like, maybe not the only ones doing it, but the ones that are clearly communicating it.

Lenny Murphy: Right. Well, again, the conversation, I was in this conversation yesterday, and we were just talking about research. We're talking shop, right? Myself, Simon Chadwick, Elaine Riddell with the team there. So I won't get into details of what was discussed, but topics like this were certainly important topics. And the consensus of, look, is this a replacement for all primary research? No. Hell no. No. But is it a replacement for some and augmentation for more? Yes. 100%. Early stage ideation and prototyping, why the hell wouldn't you use a trained persona that's pretty sophisticated to try and just make sure your speed to concept is faster.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, as long as, now here's the great big caveat, and we'll talk more about this in a couple weeks too, but I'm in talks with somebody, a brand side researcher, who is discovering more and more fraud in the data that they are uncovering, and they cannot comfortably get to the place where they trust their data enough to build personas. Garbage in, garbage out. That's the drum that we beat all the time. So I would caution people before you jump into that, you better make sure, and this will be a segue to our next product here, product launch, but you want to make sure your data sets are really clean, that you are really confident before you build a synthetic data set based on something. Um, yep. That's the, that's the bandwagon I'd get on for two seconds. One, 100%.

Lenny Murphy: Uh, it, and again, we go back to, like instacart and you know, these companies, they arguably have an advantage, um, because of the quality of, uh, of their data, um, in going there, are they going to go there? I don't know. Probably. I mean, I would guess that all of them would to some extent, the, uh, And this is something that the bulk of the industry is really going to have to deal with. So yeah, the user testing, I thought that was great. Why don't you talk about that?

Karen Lynch: User testing launched, user testing verified. So it's AI-driven fraud detection, you know, helping enterprises, you know, trust and act on consumer insights. I think that what's interesting about it, and in the context of what I had just said, the bandwagon I was just on, is we need those tools now more than ever. At this point, the fraud detection tools, I think, are probably the most important for detection and prevention, I guess. In this case, they're talking about prevention. So detection, prevention, working hand in hand, that is where, in my opinion, researchers' investments need to go, because we have a trust problem. Because of all of this and, you know, I would, this would be, if I were on the brand side and I were talking to vendors, I would be, who are you partnered with to protect me? 100%.

Lenny Murphy: That's going to be a piece of the equation. Yep. There's one article I just realized we didn't include in here. And I know you hate it when I do this, but, but it's relevant to this topic. Karley, if you can put the link in for the Eleni and Curious announcement, because to that point, Eleni is a qualitative, they have a qualitative panel, but now they've engaged in curious research, which is an SDK for behavioral data. So, they're adding, I think, most qualitative panels inherently are somewhat higher quality to begin with. The layering in now behavioral data, they're going to be increasing, it increased the quality on the front end. Yeah, overall, so better targeting, you've got more data, there's lots of ways to monitor it. You know, all that good stuff, hats off to them. And have the backend component, like user testing is doing. So I think everybody needs to be thinking about ways to augment both pieces, right? Both sides of the equation. Absolutely. I know we're coming up on time and we have a couple more things to get through. You want to talk about it?

Karen Lynch: I just think, I mean, that's really the big story in bigger tech than just us, which is just us in the insights industry. Let's go big for a minute. Google's doing some stuff. And I feel like these two stories together are just indicative of everything and the functionality that's coming our way. So the first one is, it brought Gemini into Chrome. I'm a Chrome user. I don't know if you're using it. But they brought Gemini right into Chrome. It has agentic browsing capabilities. It can automate tasks right there in your browser. It can, you know, it can, it can combat AI generated scans. It can roll out automatic password resets. Like it is basically working for you within the Chrome browser. So when you see it kind of demoed, you're like, Oh, okay. Like I can see how all of this, um, agentic AI is going to serve me well. Expect different interfaces across all of your tools at this point, even your browser. I just think that's me. That was the big story I'm like, okay, because you know, sometimes it'd be like, Oh, look, that's new. On one of our platforms. Now we're talking about like, these are some overhauls.

Lenny Murphy: It's a big deal.

Karen Lynch: And then followed by, followed by this agent payment protocol. Now, we've also been talking a lot about this, right? But this is agent to agent payments so Google has introduced this agent payments protocol AP two. Again, not a new topic, Lenny, we've been talking about this, but what this one is, it specifically is addressing authorization. So proving that a user gave the agent the authority to make the purchase. So it's making sure that's shored up authenticity, enabling a merchant to be sure that the request actually matches the user intent. So it's like checks and balances on both sides and then accountability, determining accountability if a fraudulent or incorrect transaction occurs. So it's getting ahead of fraud, um, at this payment level. And it's just another step that shows the depth of thinking that's going into this and building these out and the, and the infrastructure.

Lenny Murphy: I mean, so let's point that out, right? I mean, Chrome is the most used browser in the world. Um, the, uh, as you search by far. So for them to roll this out system wide, I'm an Android user. I'm sure it's going to be integrated in Android. The scale, by default, they are creating on a global scale at both the individual and the corporate level. I mean, we're a Google shop within Greenbook. And unlocking those capabilities. So, you know, we think about this, a lot of things that hold back adoption is scale, infrastructure scale. We don't have that issue now, right? It's reversed. Then, you know, we have global scale, we have global infrastructure. Now, adoption will grow because we can do it. So very interesting times and pay attention. You know, we can say all we want about Google and Alphabet and all the big tech good, bad, indifferent, doesn't matter. They know what the hell they're doing.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: It's pretty cool. Yeah. A couple of quick things.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, let's just caveat that these stories are weekend reading. You'll have to report.

Lenny Murphy: Weekend reading. Weekend reading. Our friends at Rival and Reach3, released some research on conversational mobile-first surveys about improving the participant experience, data quality versus online surveys. Yes, that's what they do. But actually, you know, I mean, this is Angus Read's kids, right, Andrew and Jen. I mean, they don't mess around with this stuff. They're treating it. They're going straight.

Karen Lynch: They're wanting to download and read a good report on research on research, like 100%.

Lenny Murphy: And look at everything that we've just been talking about. If you think that the mode of research is not shifting more towards different devices, Setter, setter, you haven't paid attention. So yeah, so definitely a great report. You saw the Read.

Karen Lynch: I really like this one because I'm sure you do too. I'm sure this is cautionary for Lenny. He's like, oh shoot, here we are. Because of my dalliance, I've just outsourced the writing.

Lenny Murphy: Oh my gosh.

Karen Lynch: Oh my gosh. Your Brain on Chat GPT. So it's a study that's been published, and you can click on some links. And do some further reading, but it is presenting some evidence that heavy reliance on an LLM, like chat GPT, for writing can reduce neural connectivity, memory recall, and a sense of ownership versus search or unaided writing. They tracked it over four months. So there's some big time concerns that have been raised by this. Certainly in the context of learning, but I would caution all of us because you know because it's really easy to say let it do the thinking for me. But this is a throwback to when you were like, I don't know. I'm a little afraid.

Lenny Murphy: I don't know if I went through that. I mean I did this and you called me a couple times.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, let's just say yes, I will say it's interesting.

Lenny Murphy: I'd like to see a follow-up on this on using it as a collaborative tool. Yes. Because I would make the argument that as long as my thinking is there, I'm really not worried about whether the words are mine or not. Right. As long as it's informed by my thinking, my IP, my data, that's how I like to think that I use these tools now. There was definitely, I went through a phase where I was like, you do it. I don't have time. And I will attest that it didn't stick. So. Mine is very much, I might give it a task and then I don't like what it sends back.

Karen Lynch: And I'm like, yeah, no, we got to word it this way. Like I am definitely having a conversation with it all the time. So even if I'm using it for a writing related task, it is definitely not, I'm not, it is not just doing things for me. It is certainly still listening to me. And I appreciate every time it tells me I'm right, because that's always a good thing.

Lenny Murphy: And you know, it did unlock a lot of that though, was that it's that's easier when now that memory is there. Yeah, user memory. So I have definitely Yeah, that makes it yes. No, right now I'm really perplexed anymore than I use anything else. And that memory feature is amazing to be able to pull things together effectively in that collaborative approach. Anyway, yeah, interesting reading. Be careful, guys. We can't dumb ourselves down. Yeah.

Karen Lynch: And we're going to bring y'all down to earth a little bit, too, with this next piece, and then even kind of the one right after it, but so there's an argument for everybody to read AI will not make you rich. It's cautioning everyone against the hype and then kind of emphasizing the way to invest in AI is to think through the implication of the knowledge workers becoming more and more efficient and to imagine markets that are unlocked that efficiency.

Lenny Murphy: Yes.

Karen Lynch: So think about it that way and not just invest in the tech, but you're investing in the people who can use the tech to, you know, tackle new things and find new opportunities. So it's a very interesting, interesting long read, but I do recommend you read it. So I'm glad you found it.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, no, it's, it's a good one. I think there's, there's a framework and we'll publish more about this soon that I've been thinking about and it's utility, Augmentation in net new right utilities augmentations, you know, they just help you do stuff better and cooler. Yeah new now You may get rich if you do something that new right that that's fun, but it's also so hard. Yeah, create something wholly new so most to the point here. Most of it is that they're gonna be efficiency gains that have implications.

Karen Lynch: We need to think through Right into the little it's a good segue Right. Creating something new. Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah.

Karen Lynch: A Forbes profile on Edwin Chen, who's, um, I love the phrase that we got the low key billionaire behind surge. I didn't know anything about surge, uh, data labeling company and, um, nice to see the people that did get rich. And you know what data labeling is?

Lenny Murphy: You reach out to people. They use panels to, hey, will you take a picture of the cat and upload it and say, this is a cat? Our systems will know that's a cat. That's what Data Label is. This was a very specific micro-task capability in the early days of building AI training sets. Yeah, a low-key billionaire. I'd like to be a low-key billionaire.

Karen Lynch: I want to be a low-key billionaire.

Lenny Murphy: I'd like to be a low-key millionaire. So instead I'm a, I'm a very high profile, you know, uh, middle, uh, middle income guy. Well, that's it. You got to go.

Karen Lynch: I do. I really do have to go. I, um, I have a flight to catch as they say, and it's raining, so it's not going to be a great trip to the airport, but you know, what are you going to do? Or I'm flying out of Newark. A lot of international flights go out of Newark, so at what time?

Lenny Murphy: I prefer Newark over either of the Newark airports, so enjoy.

Karen Lynch: I'm flying home to JFK. To me, they're all somewhat interchangeable, and I base it on other things. But tonight's flight's out of Newark, so there you go.

Lenny Murphy: All right. Well, enjoy safe travels. Guys, enjoy this. We'll be back next week, special guest, special guest host.

Karen Lynch: Yes.

Lenny Murphy: So we'll spring it on you then. I think it'll, I think you'll enjoy it. It'll be a good conversation.

Karen Lynch: You'll be great. I'll be, I'll be, uh, anxiously awaiting it. I will not see you next week because on Friday of next week, I'm headed down for parents weekend at my daughter's school. My very last parents weekend.

Lenny Murphy: Wow.

Karen Lynch: End of an era. I mean, technically, you know, when you have that many kids, you, um, you go to a lot of parents' weekends and my kids were all the kind of kids that weren't like, Oh yeah, come anytime. Don't come to your parents ' weekend. My kids were like, Oh no, I want you there if other people's parents are there. I want you there, too, but there's a big tailgate because it's a big tent school. So, you know, we do we do We do family weekend the way you should which is a good old tailgate and then good tickets to a football game So that's where I will be headed down on Friday So I will see you all in two weeks, but you will see Lenny next week with a special guest Yeah, be prepared. All right, everybody.

Lenny Murphy: Take care Karen safe travels.

Karen Lynch: Thank you so much.

Lenny Murphy: We'll see you all.

Links from the episode:

Private equity firm Novacap to buy Integral Ad Science for $1.9 billion 

Nothing closes $200M Series C led by Tiger Global, plans AI-first device launch 

Beyond the Screen: The Rise of Wearable AIs & Smarter Agents 

DataDiggers launches tech adoption survey 

Instacart introduced the Consumer Insights Portal (CIP) 

Morning Consult Announces AI-Native Vision to Redefine Market Research 

KNow Research introduced Indikaters™ 

UserTesting launched “UserTesting Verified” 

L&E Research and Qrious Insight Announce Partnership 

Google brings Gemini in Chrome to US users, unveils agentic browsing capabilities, and more 

Powering AI commerce with the new Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) 

The Research on Conversational Research 

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task 

AI Will Not Make You Rich 

How A Google Alum Became A Low-Key AI Billionaire And The Youngest Member Of The Forbes 400