Human Insight in the Age of AI with Cristina de Balanzo of Accenture Song

Cristina de Balanzo joins Lenny Murphy to explore what happens to human understanding as AI, automation, and synthetic approaches reshape the insights industry. Drawing on a career spanning sociology, advertising, neuroscience, Walnut Unlimited, and now Accenture Song, Cristina explains why emotion, judgment, and behavioral science remain critical even as research becomes faster and more scalable.

The conversation examines how AI can help researchers go deeper rather than simply cheaper, where human expertise still creates differentiated value, and why organizations need a shared language for understanding people. Cristina also reflects on the ethical responsibilities that come with behavioral science and AI, arguing that intellectual honesty, multidisciplinary thinking, storytelling, and a strong moral compass will be essential for the next generation of insights leaders.

Key Discussion Points

• Why emotion remains a fundamental driver of behavior, even as technology and research methodologies rapidly evolve.
• How Accenture Song is combining technology, creativity, behavioral science, and human understanding to deliver insight at scale.
• The difference between using AI to make research merely faster and cheaper versus using it to enable deeper thinking and stronger decision-making.
• Why human judgment, contextual understanding, and meaning-making become more valuable as intelligence and automation become increasingly accessible.
• Cristina’s lessons for researchers and entrepreneurs, including intellectual honesty, multidisciplinary thinking, storytelling, academic rigor, and using insight responsibly.

Resources & Links

• Accenture Song

You can reach out to Cristina de Balanzo on LinkedIn

Many thanks to Cristina de Balanzo for being our guest. Thanks also to our production team and our editor at Big Bad Audio.

Transcript

[Lenny] Hello everybody, it's Lenny Murphy with another edition of the CEO Series. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to spend it with myself and my guest. And this has been a long time coming. It is my honor and my privilege to be joined today by Cristina de Balanzo, formerly the director of Walnut and now currently a manager at Accenture. And that's kind of the story here. We're going to talk about that journey, but Cristina, welcome.

[Cristina] Thank you so much, Lenny. I was just remembering when we went to the first IIEX in Sao Paulo, when you first started IIEX and yeah, a few months since.

[Lenny] It's been a long time and you were always a fixture at IIEXEU as well. And yeah, it's been fun. But why don't, obviously we know each other, but the audience may not. So why don't you give a quick bio and origin story to level set, and then we'll get into the meat.

[Cristina] Excellent. Well, I guess what is funny about my story is like, it's really a hybrid. And I guess the hybrid is one of, probably, my greatest assets, right? It's coming from different parts of different industries. And even my degree, I studied sociology, always super interested in human behavior. It's still a real passion of mine. But then maybe this curiosity about humans, maybe eventually went to advertising. And I was there, my strategic planner, McCann Erickson, as well trying to understand human behavior, right? Trying to change people's behavior and having this insight, trying to be shaping creativity and the oral communications. And this is when I was there, I started my PhD. And this is how the PhD opened the door in the early 2000s, it was, to a world of neuroscience, is when we were trying to measure people's emotions. And it's almost— the word neuromarketing started to be a buzzword. But what fascinated me is being a sociologist, from a more societal point of view, to go to the most individual point. And I think that that two knowledges were utterly important, particularly in my area, that is TV's and communications. And this research side, from being a planner, I got a call from TNS and Kantar now to join them as a global head of neuroscience. Huge title and massive challenges. And there I learned a lot about traditional market research, how neuroscience could provide this additional layer of insights. I had the pleasure of partnering with professors Gemma Calvert, Professor Rafael Ohme, and Tim Ambler from the London Business School, being with Siemon Scamell-Katz, pioneering in eye tracking.

So all these really personalities, all of them are great personalities, how they taught me and this, how I learned through them, how we put together a fantastic research using fMRI, functional magnetic resonance. So that was super pioneering and use of methodologies in market research. And then as well, I was working with ESOMAR to develop the 36 questions about how to commission neuroscience and neuromarketing at the time that we call it. And that was like contributing to our global standards, right? So this research, so something like neuroscience erupted in market research, as well as behavioral science. And it needed to be understood, needed that we keep as well client's guidance, right? About how to commission, because at the time, as you know Lenny, I mean, there was a lot of cowboys too, right? That we needed to stop one of these, like, well, ask the right question. So being TNS at the time, it was really important to make this contribution. And then I was much more in a global role and I was in every ESOMAR annual conference, contributing with papers. And that was a very important moment. It was three years, but really important for getting my foundation right. And this thing came to an end and I started Walnut. And Walnut was at the time, obviously, a very tiny, tiny neuroscience consultancy with an ethos. It's true that probably my background about brands and communication made me come up with a very cool name as well. They're trying to encapsulate what my ethos was, that is this blending, right? This understanding this conscious and unconscious, this explicit and implicit dimension.

These two things about the Walnut, right? So it's kind of that… and what is inside as well, understand this holistically. So this, it was a nice metaphor that, but Walnut was acquired very quickly, like not even a year. It was acquired by Creston, public company at the time. And it was the best thing I did because they had the creativity and it’s where I wanted to building on my story, right? So really inside feeling better and more effective communications that it was my area. So we did that and pretty successfully. Then we joined with marketing sciences and ICM and all of them became under the brand Walnut. So this, and we become bigger and obviously more powerful. They have an amazing list of clients that they work for many, many years and helped to bring the new agency, the newcomer to very strong agencies in the UK. And that was a nice ride. And then now last year, it happened not 18 months ago. It happened that the Unlimited was acquired by Accenture Song. And here is amazing. I mean, in this 18 months, the speed in which we have done everything is pretty full on, but then is the opportunity of saying, wow, it's just the opportunity of blending this technology, creativity and human understanding. And this is why I'm there, right? Trying to bring this humanity into all these solutions, these processes that Accenture Song beautifully claims and how we can bring this human judgment, this understanding human behavior. And so far, so good. I mean, there are days and days, as you can imagine, but I mean, trying to learn the ropes of being in a big corporate, but enjoying. I mean, they are keeping me busy, I would say. And that's really my last, these are 25 years plus of my career.

[Lenny] So, Cristina, thank you for that. And when I think about how long we've known each other, which, like 15 years, something of that nature. And obviously, I've always been a big fan of applied behavioral science and all of its permutations, believe that, it's preaching to the choir, right? That it is the missing element. And as data continues to make it easier to understand who, what, when, where and how, the why, the why becomes increasingly important, right? And the frame for that obviously sits under the behavioral science, which is my big bucket term. Yeah, and of course, now we're also getting technology that allows us to capture that. I mean, fMRI, right? Gold standard, but it's not particularly scalable or easy. But now we have so many ways to measure emotion from a technology standpoint, as well as from a framing perspective, right? More of the qualitative approaches.

So, it's very cool when I think about you and the journey that you've been on has been from TNS and building that capability within TNS and then within Walmart, not Walmart, Walnut Unlimited. Although I bet Walmart was a customer at some point. But anyway, expanding that. And now thinking like Accenture. And that's the surprising part, because I was not thinking of Accenture, right? As a, I think it was very data centric, super smart, consultative, but not necessarily focused on understanding emotion and behavior. So, it's really cool to know that Accenture has made that acquisition. They brought you in very purposely, not as a byproduct, but focused on that to scale that across the organization. So, hats off, really neat. What have you learned through that journey of scaling, right? You went from big company to smaller company, scaled that up, now back into a big company, one of the biggest companies in the world from a strategy consulting standpoint. What have you learned about how we keep coming back to, it's important to understand why, and how that fits even in the new context in a company like Accenture?

[Cristina] I think that the real thing is what you were already saying. You know, I think Accenture and every company has realized that everything is accelerating, but human truths remain actually quite remarkably stable. And emotion is still the engine of behavioral change. So, understanding emotion is still kind of utterly important. And the world with technology and all the changes on AI as well, this agentic world, to understand how people interact with those figures, whether they are an element in the decision-making, whether there's a branch that needs to be talking to these two audiences, how they do it. I think that's why this human understanding is so important. When we're trying to scale, even at the limited, we have this LUCA that is an AI-powered insight tool that our planners were already using as a way of supporting, to democratize insight.

To be able not to talk to us every time, or able to do things that we couldn't do, like doing psychographic profiles of brands versus competitors. So, understanding, summarizing a lot of verbatims in one, like we couldn't do things like that. So, we already had this LUCA able, not doing everything that we were doing at Walnut, but already doing a fair amount, providing this insight at a scale. And now is having LUCA adding more tools, like in the synthetic world as well. But we are there, that all these research capabilities have been as well used, and where our knowledge and our science says to know whether we are delivering is in the right quality standards. So, it's how we have this premium research, that we have products as well that are able to provide global solutions and scalable products that we can offer to these kind of big corporations. We have always had that, but it's true that you have always done, well, you do premium research. So, yes, we do premium research, but we also have pockets of products that they are really off-shelf. So, I guess we have always had this global and as well, and premium or scalable and premium research. And I think in the future of research, you need to have all. So, you are going to have projects that you cannot run at the scale because require this kind of deep understanding, this deep human judgment. And there are other things that you need to be agile, and you need to be able to provide an agentic solution that is able to be much, well, to be responsive to the needs that this world is going faster and faster.

So, it's true that sometimes when our projects take too many weeks or months, you know, even a research for a year and a year and a half, not every company has the luxury of this time. We probably are late. So, I think it's AI now as an engine of accelerating these processes is understanding where these humans are needed. And it's not necessarily even less people, it's more that I'm going faster for the things that we are not needed. And actually, we are even an obstacle, even humans can actually fail. You know, when I'm preparing a survey, I'm like, let's make this agentic because the way that we are doing this manual job, we have more chances to fail. But then I need more people because we have more data when more people thinking about how to make this data more useful. But I think since Unlimited, we already have these two types of solutions and is the way that we have been moving forward. I guess, and now thinking of Accenture, we are going to be able to have a really, and we do have now this synthetic offer at a level that I know many companies have for this support, right?

[Lenny] I think that's really interesting watching the trajectory. I see other companies moving towards that as well with the... So, I've kind of gotten to the point where it boils down to where does value compound? And it's in data, right? Unique data. And the other end is expertise, sense-making of that. And the currency in between is trust, right? We have to trust that it's good data. We have to trust that the technology that's running the process in the middle is solid and trust that the human element, the orchestration, the judgment, the deep thinking, even the intuition, right, that is trustworthy. And that's truly where the value compounds. When I think about a company, well, certainly your trajectory across your history, as well as coming to like Accenture, it really is in the business of scaling judgment.

[Cristina] I think so.

[Lenny] Yeah. And having that core component of judgment, which is that emotional component. We like to think it's easy to fall into the trap that it's all quant, it's all numbers and analysis. And that's certainly a big chunk, right? And some problems, that's all you need. Oh, yes, we see that there was a shortage of this and therefore people got angry. Okay, well, we can see that very clear. But to your real point, in this period of disruption and change and even social change, value change, generational changes, understanding the non-conscious drivers, understanding the whys at scale is more important than maybe it's ever been. Because we can't assume that our understanding of things in the past applies to understanding of situations today. Is that, am I right? Am I way off? You're like, no, no, Lenny.

[Cristina] No, no, I think you're right. I think there are some, a lot of fundamentals that the other day Steve Phillips as well was saying. We like to think that technology is changing a lot but we are not really changing the way that we work at the speed that technology is doing neither. So I think there's... But there are things that humans are not going to change neither. So I think that this is true that there's a lot of unknowns right? So because it's true that how we are interacting with ChatGPTs and now every day, it's fascinating. What does the future hold? Can these people become really almost one of us? You know what I mean? That's kind of philosophical questions that come like part of the research. When I was thinking about this interview was like, and what is the future of intelligence as we understand. So not just the future of research but the impact that this has at human level, where it leaves us and this kind of thing is always understanding why do they need these humans? T

hese real humans that we are talking. You know, when we can use synthetic approaches you know, we have the right data to make this a synthesis of the data that we can actually scale and have the efficiencies. And this is what our role as a researcher is. When do we need real humans? When do we need these humans to come up with a hypothesis in a real kind of go to the core of a good researcher. Like do I have a hypothesis that are the right ones. And for generating hypothesis you need different sciences. Do you need to understand the context in this human? For any tech solution, for any campaign and for the revolutionary changes that are happening now in different industries. And I think that's where social sciences and social thinkers are more important than ever.

[Lenny] Yeah, I agree. I don't think, I often question myself of, alright am I whistling past the graveyard as a consultant, as someone who's really just paid for thinking? Is there a bias here? But I don't think so. The more, obviously, the more things progress what I recognize and especially utilizing these tools which are becoming more and more sophisticated. I actually think intelligence has now become a commodity. If we look at all of the, you know all of the LLMs and the frontier labs, et cetera, et cetera they're all a parody. They're roughly, et cetera, et cetera. One will get smarter then the next one gets smarter.

[Cristina] And they're becoming better and better at the speed of weekly basis. If you are with them, it's pretty impressive.

[Lenny] One upset, which absolutely is impressive but it also makes it a commodity easily accessible to everybody. So if that's true, if everybody has the level set access to a core technological solution of intelligence that makes it, we can do all these cool things really fast and all that good stuff. What is the, what, where's the value? The value is in a unique data that's hard to replicate or get and in the judgment in that human, that aha moment that happens in the shower, right? Or that listening to somebody in that sense that we get it. Oh, that's what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's really where the value accrues and where true insight that makes a difference in the business where that manifests.

[Cristina] Yeah, exactly. I think the future in our industry is what you just described. So there is one that is the future is the race to the bottom, faster, cheaper more automated and is what you're saying, right? That the insight is treated as a commodity. Any manager can go and provide the insight, the questionnaire, off we go. But, and the future is where you lose the things that makes research generally valuable. These dead, these neurons, right? And this human understanding that we were both referring to. The other future, the one that I hope that we are in this, in this world that we are committed to for the way that you are talking about as well is that AI allows you to go deeper, not just faster. So I think this time of this data collection and processing, and when I having an idea for a conference, now it's like, I go to put my thoughts and Claude comes with something that, okay it’s not perfect, but wow, like just to give it my, and also my crazy way of thinking, like sometimes it's quite, it's not linear. I don't know how to explain to someone else but this person is, imagine this person saying so Claude is living the way I think and all my sources of information that has storage and is able to provide an interpretation. So then I can go deeper.

[Lenny] Yep.

[Cristina] Allows me to… so it's not that Claude give me the idea. It would be, I don't know, maybe in five years it does, or less, I don't know, but this is the thing. You know how, but this first interpretation, this first idea, this contextual understanding, this brief that you provide to any of these platforms that you, this is the meaning machine that makes us irreplaceable. And I think this is what we need to create, curate. And then if it means that we can now do much more because of this, the speed and the speed that we can get all this information or like take all these papers and give me all this facilitates my life. But at the end of the day, I cannot lose that I wouldn't be able to interpret this summary if I wouldn't have my 25 years experience.

[Lenny] Yeah. Yep. It's almost scaling kind of system one, system two. Isn't it? Yeah. The not important decisions. Fine. Go do that. That's really, I don't really care. Right. You can manage this because it's not particularly important. The important is as the consequential the things that really drive, you know, that human element. Actually, I saw a study yesterday. I'll send you a copy of it. The, out of, I think it was Brigham Young University on the levels of AI usage, how you use AI from that has negative effects to positive effects as humans. And the basic outsourcing of thinking? That's negative, right? It makes us dumber. So, but this more collaborative way that I think you and I both probably use it of challenging as a, yeah, as a thought partner, right? Like, okay, let's work back more. Let's iterate. Let's think about these things and that synthesis of information for me to evaluate, for us to evaluate with emotion, right? With instinct, with intuition that that actually seems to be making us better in some ways, which is really interesting to think about then how do we scale that, right? In a company like Accenture through your business is taking those learnings and that idea and learn how to make that even more accessible.

[Cristina] Another thing that we are doing Lenny is these trainings about all our human understanding, how we understand those humans. What is emotion? What is, what are these humans? What are the frameworks that we use to understand human needs, implicit, explicit needs? So how this psychology, neuroscience, behavioral sciences, the sciences provide them a way of attacking those briefs in a different way. I think a way of a scaling as well is how if you really have a mission and a vision of where you want the business to go and you provide those accelerators that this is still, by making people to understand that we all have the same ways of approaching things as well can, and the same vocabulary, right? That is like emotional words that we all use. And you're like, but do you know what we mean by that? Do you know? And actually we can measure it and then it stopped talking in a room about emotion if you are not understanding the concept. By providing these tools, I think, and this common vocabulary as well as a way that they were asking about how they're scaling is more as well as scaling knowledge and way of thinking.

And people are super attracted by that. I was really, I wouldn't say surprised because I think everyone is interested in understanding humans. So I think it's already something attractive, you know, that is like, it's the same when you put in a presentation of brain, people are interested in their brains and in the way that we, why we think in the way we do. So I think it's, has been another weapon to try to scale this knowledge, making a democratizing the way that we do things and approach human business problems that we always say behind any business problem there is a human problem. And understanding this translation between business and humans helps us well in our strategic teams to think about the things in a different way, not just the tech solution, but what is a human problem that you're running to sort it out. And I think this is more changes. I think they accelerate change. It's like you put your seats here and there. And all of a sudden, I think we will see how we can improve, right? Our delivery to clients.

[Lenny] Yeah. And I think it's important also to recognize that it's a superpower, right? We've all seen examples of nudging, right? Of applied behavioral science that maybe resulted in not so great outcomes, right? Maybe it was particularly virtuous in doing that. And I actually remember a conversation with John Kieran a few years ago, from Brain Juicer, that they were approached by some other organizations that they weren’t anxious to work with. And they said, no, we're not giving you access to our knowledge because we think that it needs to be applied in a virtuous way, right? To make the world better. And that was it, that, where I'm going at that is, it's an interesting frame to think about.

The more we understand, let's recognize there can be, I mean, the world is, history is filled with examples of propaganda, right? Of political and social things that did not have good outcomes. It was used for bad purposes. I mean, just recognize that. The, now being the guardians, I guess, for lack of a better term, of helping to develop these solutions in a way that, sure, creates value for businesses. 100%, they want to sell more stuff. Got it. Right. Ultimately that's why they're in business. Okay. So, but so many other applications as well that can make life better for humans and continue to help us evolve. Sorry, I went off on a soapbox. Where I was going with that was, what do you think the future looks like, right? Now that we have the ability to scale these things and there's risks and there's rewards, right? There's responsibility that we have in doing that. What does that look like for you? What do you think that the future holds?

[Cristina] My future, so the one that I want to be part of, because I think there's a moral compass as well here, right? And me as a researcher for that many years of professional, is this kind of, the fact that we can answer a lot of questions is always like, but do I want to give this answer? I don't know, right? And I think here is more, the future is about how we try to keep a balance between this, the human understanding, this deep understanding, this human agency with AI in a way that they can be generating sustainable growth, that we can really keep the right balance, and understanding where this, so the future, the ones that could survive are the ones that want to get the right balance. The ones that give the humans the role that they deserve and these humans are able to understand what these machines can provide to be better humans and better professionals.

I think it's a matter always of this equilibrium, this something that combines a symbiotic relationship, and I think these organizations not seeing AI only as a faster, as a fast way to get what you want, but there's always a space for this reflection and those humans to drive that change. And I think the future of success, I'm not responding to what is the future because I don't know how the future, I think the future needs to be, to just generate kind of an organizational change to what these agentic solutions are gonna provoke. I think they're gonna be tsunamis, right? So, and I think, I don't know, like if you ask me, okay, in an agentic solution, how many people are you gonna need? Then you know how this organization look like. I don't know. And I think obviously that's where we need to work all as an industry. What is the equilibrium between humans and these agentic solutions? But I hope it's to bring more value to our insight business, despite currently, I think we are not winning, right? So I think it's now at the moment is more that insight is treated as a commodity and it has always been the case, but now that is a problem. So I hope the future, so it's the one that I think what I'm saying is that let's work for this future in which we can have the right balance between these AI solutions and these humans know their place quicker. Otherwise the future is quite…

[Lenny] Scary.

[Cristina] It's scary. Yeah. So I think it's more the future is like, come on guys, let's write the future together. Let's try the right balance. Let’s work it out how this organizational changes look like rather than leaving these in the hands of people who don't understand insights and they are going to just take this commoditization and not seeing the value.

[Lenny] No, I get it. And in the analogy, I am keenly aware. I said yesterday, somebody was like, look, on any given day, I vacillate between existential dread and geeking out of like, oh my God, that's so cool. Often over the same topic, right? …I always think of like, look, we are balancing on the edge between kind of a Black Mirror episode or a Star Trek episode, right? We can go either way. And I 100% get that and also agree that from an insights industry standpoint, our future has never been brighter in terms of the impact we can make if we claim it, when we focus on judgment, expertise, meaning making those types of things, process from a business standpoint, the process we're already on that trajectory, right? From DIY to automation, right? This is nothing new. We're reaching the ultimate destination of where technology was going to take us from a process standpoint.

That's not where the value is created. So knowing how to do the process? Yes. We need to know what the process is, but the execution of that? That was always going to become dealt with from technology. And the same thing exists for almost any other category you can mention. So the grunt work stuff, that's what tech does, but the meaning making, that’s the value. I want to be really conscious of your time. We've gone longer than we agreed to. I know you've got a meeting that you need to get on. You've had quite the journey. What lessons would you pass on to other entrepreneurs, to other folks that just wisdom on this entrepreneurial journey that you've been on?

[Cristina] …So I think one of the things that try to be superhuman is not over claimed. I think in neuroscience it’s so easy to over claim, right? …I think intellectual honesty is so important and I think is a competitive advantage. You know, when you play, you want to set up a business is this belief right? And this belief cannot be by over claims, particularly now, right? The second as well, quite related to my area, maybe it's not for everyone, but is this always keep a step in academia. I used to lecture much more than I do now, but now I'm still a reviewer of the journal of advertising research. I tried to be still part of the work that they let me do, like just being always with these thinkers, you know, there's people that are trying to put our industry, so something grounded, and I think it's so important. Then if you want to set up something, it's something that doesn't do one thing. I think it's more this blending. I do think that now all these AI companies that are coming… our market is crazy, but I think the blend, because no single methodology is going to give the answers.

And as a researcher, I think has always been this, the same that you have to have different disciplines on your head to really understand those humans and crack human complexity. I think this complexity is coming by this blend and using technology. No, it doesn't end, but always to channel something that you need. And then, I think you're a storyteller. I think it's maybe something I learned in advertising, but with anything that we bring is, you can bring the most rigorous methodology, but you have to tell to the world what you're doing. I mean, storytelling is what you need to really nail. And just be in this world, try to tell a story, try to be meaningful, try to empathize with people beyond what methodology you use. And I think in research, we are researchers, like we get so focused on what, how you did it, but it's the storytelling. And now with AI, I think storytelling is where we can make it even more the human, know that the role for humans in these stories, despite that AI is getting better and better at stories. But I think it still remains quite human.

[Lenny] Yeah, I agree. That is, that is wisdom, Cristina.

[Cristina] Well, I don't know. I don't know. And I always used to keep, I think I mentioned it already in the interview, it's quite personal, but I think it's like, use your skills for good. Right. I think it's like, if this can sometimes rely, yeah, I might be able to answer this question, but should we? Yeah. Should we? And for whom? And this moral compass has been what differentiates professionals from great professionals. …And this is what I really, I would always say to, I have always tried to have this. Yeah. It's how you treat people and how you deal with this world, because I think we have a lot of responsibility sometimes. And I think we, yeah, we need to have the courage to defend our ideas and our moral standpoint, right?

[Lenny] So, yep. The golden rule, it's considered the golden rule for a reason, right? It's pretty, it's pretty universal and it's always served me in good stead. So I agree heartily. We could go off for a very long time talking about morals and ethics and all of that good stuff. Cause that's a fact. And actually we probably should try and have you back on and talk about that. Cause it is a topic that we don't talk about very often. It is important, but we we'll do that another time. Cristina, such a joy. Great conversation. Thank you so much. Where can people find you?

[Cristina] People find me on LinkedIn. I'm more, I mean, in social media, I'm not, I don't think anyone is going to see my Instagram, but in any case, I don't post so much. So I think LinkedIn is probably the place where people can find me. And obviously my email, if they want to chat, I will be very keen at talking to people.

[Lenny] Okay, excellent. All right. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

[Cristina] Thank you, Lenny. So nice speaking to you.

[Lenny] Yeah, always. We should do this more often. I want to give a shout out to Emma Nicolls, our producer, to Big Bad Audio, to our sponsors, most of all to our listeners. Thank you for tuning in and giving Cristina and I a chance to chat. So that's it for now. Thank you.