The Inflection Point: AI Integration, Data Revolution, and What's Next

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!

The research and technology landscape is transforming rapidly. This conversation captures the shifts that matter most: major industry conferences offering career-defining opportunities, AI-powered devices reshaping consumer behavior, and OpenAI's pivot toward audio-first interfaces that could make screens obsolete.

Three seismic changes stand out—the data revolution turning retailers into intelligence platforms, health tech breakthroughs democratizing personal wellness, and market consolidations signaling that automation and AI aren't just trends, they're the new foundation of competitive advantage.

Many thanks to our producer, Karley Dartouzos. 

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Transcript

Lenny Murphy: And we're live. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, everybody. We're back. And we were just scrambling with like, wait, how do we do this? Because it's been like three weeks since we did anything.

Karen Lynch: It's been a long time. And you know, Lenny and I were just sharing with one another and with Karley, which we will share with all of you. It felt like this year, this season, a lot of companies shut down. A lot of people were in catch-up mode this week. And, um, you know, just an understatement of the year. And we were saying how like Monday, Tuesday was sort of like people easing back into things. I actually worked last Friday, so I had a very quiet day just doing my emails. But then by The end of The week, it's like, bam, here we are. We remember this is what your work life is usually.

Lenny Murphy: Yes. It has been, uh, back with The vengeance. Um, but, uh, but here we are and into a fresh new year and that's probably, we have some housekeeping. Because we got an ambitious series of events coming up. So we need to remind everybody, there's more than just listening to Karen and I.

Karen Lynch: And we mean that literally, an ambitious series of events. Series of events, which is life at Green Bay. Yeah, let's get right into it. Because we do have quite a few stories to share since we were away, or not away, but we were off The air for a few weeks. But let's start talking about AIPAC, our IIX APEC event, it's The first one of The year. It's coming up very soon. It's one of my favorite of our events, which I guess that's silly, because I probably say that about a lot of our events, or if not all of them. But Bangkok is a really special event, what we put together there. It's very intimate. It's The audience there really, they're really there to learn and to network and to meet. They're like The gold standard of what everybody wishes events attendees were like in terms of their behavior. They're really engaged with our sponsors and our exhibitors, and they're really sitting in The front row for The sessions. It's really special there. So it's the time to get your tickets since that event is just a few weeks away.

Lenny Murphy: 100%, and then followed right on its heels, uh, at least from our standpoint, um, then we've got, uh, IX North America. Yeah.

Karen Lynch: And yeah. And you know, Karley Karley gave us The reminder that The early bird tickets are expiring in just a few days, midnight on The 11th, midnight Eastern on The 11th early bird tickets. So the price will not get better than that. So just keep that in mind. If you know you're coming to North America, you should take advantage of these rates because they, they just will not be better than that.

Lenny Murphy: And one interesting thing right now, The news popped over The holidays that The Reagan building is about to become The new FBI headquarters. So if you've never experienced that venue and all of its wonderful attributes, we don't know if we'll be there next year because we may not be allowed to. In 2027?

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Interesting. And no, we haven't booked 2027. We did book when we booked for 2020, for those of you wondering, and you were there last year. It is the same venue it was in last year. It's big, it's impressive, it is in the heart of DC. So there's a lot going on there, but yeah, I don't know what we're gonna do next year. We have a lot to...

Lenny Murphy: Right, right. But if you come to The event, The event's fantastic. The venue may be your last chance to get to The venue, unless you're going for an unfortunate reason of needing to meet with The FBI for some reason.

Karen Lynch: For all the reasons. That's right.

Lenny Murphy: And then we got the EU. Really?

Karen Lynch: I mean, that is going to be just as soon as APEC comes and I switch my focus, I'll wrap up North America programming. But then Europe is really right on its tail. So Amsterdam, as it is, just because that is such an efficient city for so many Europeans to get to. It just works no matter how we slice it. Super early bird tickets expire January 12th. So that's a super early bird. So North America, early bird expires The 11th super early bird for Europe expires on The 12th. Um, uh, we're sold out for brands and buyers, but they can still get tickets at a slightly higher price. That's what Karley is saying. The longer you wait, The more money you'll pay is The bottom line for all of this. So if you know, these two events are on your timetable, uh, or these three, if you want to go to all of them, like time is now and And we should point out, if you want to meet The famous Karen Lynch in person, she will be at all of those events. No, I'm not going to Bangkok this year. You're not going to Bangkok this year?

Lenny Murphy: I was going to ask, you're going to go do your beachside vacation? My beachside vacation.

Karen Lynch: Actually, full disclosure, when I thought I was still going, I was exploring, what beach can I get to next? Because I love tours. Or The beaches on that side of The world. No, you know what? This year I am going to The QRCA conference, which is also happening The same with Bangkok. I mean, The IAX APEC is happening and it's been a few years since I've been to The QRCA conference. And I'm feeling the need to kind of reconnect with that audience and kind of check The pulse on Qual because it's been a momentous year for Qualitative in general. And in my current role, as you know, I want to make sure I am tapped into what's being discussed there at that venue. So it felt much more important for me to go to that event this year. So I will be at The QRCA conference in San Antonio the same week as Bangkok.

Lenny Murphy: Well, there's a plug for QRCA too.

Karen Lynch: There's a plug for The QRCA too. Unintended plug.

Lenny Murphy: Unintended plug. All right.

Karen Lynch: And I'll be facilitating a roundtable at QRCA on thought leadership. So that's going to be a great conversation. So if you are a QALY and you're going to The QRCA annual conference, friends join me at The roundtable talking about thought leadership because I have a lot of thoughts about it, but mostly I'm there as a facilitator to see what other people's thoughts are too. Thoughts on thought leadership, super meta.

Lenny Murphy: Yes, I was just thinking that, that is so meta. And I can't think of anybody better to facilitate a conversation on thought leadership.

Karen Lynch: Well, thank you. You must want something. It was a very nice compliment you're paying me today.

Lenny Murphy: Relaxing the last two weeks of the year. Don't count on it going forward And then we want to give a shout out to The MRI just opened their applications for The Reg Baker Career Advancement Award MRI They're you know, good friends and partners Reg Baker Reg who knows? I mean Reg was my favorite curmudgeon in The research space and his passing was still lost anyway, so as a link for for that which is a great opportunity for folks to get access to training, education, uh, for free, I think it's free or incredibly discounted, something of that nature.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. I, um, what did I kind of look into? It's sponsored by Escalant. I think when you click on The link that, you know, of course, Karley shares all The links sponsored by Escalant, um, The participant, The recipient receives full enrollment of the research certificate course.

Lenny Murphy: So full enrollment, full enrollment, there we go. And Escalante was market strategies as part of that, and that's where Reg, uh, Reg came from So, uh, so good to see Escalante, uh, doing that. All right. We got a bunch of stuff. I was afraid of the hall because it was quiet and it was like, you know, no, what are we going to talk about? Yes.

Karen Lynch: Well, I was going to say what we were going to talk about and then, oh, that's right. The consumer electronics show.

Lenny Murphy: So yes, neither of us went to one day.

Karen Lynch: It is on my bucket list. I was thinking that this year. I mean, obviously, a lot with AI, a lot with personalization, not necessarily a big surprise. And, you know, it could be probably debated, The importance of us attending that, except that Lenny and I look at The, you know, kind of trends, The macro trends, The tech trends in general, to be able to interpret for all of you and make sense out of everything that's happening, of why it's important to our industry. So that is kind of our translation role. So that's why we're really tapped into this. So I really want to talk about some of these stories. I can't wait to get to The Vibe bot. But first, just kind of the big picture at CES, The buzz really is about what is largely in The AI space, physical AI, integrating AI into everyday devices. So and spoiler alert, I'm just going to keep talking because I'm really jazzed about this Vibe bot. Now, if you don't know Vibe, Vibe is The maker of The white smart boards that are in a lot of offices, corporations, classrooms, you know, The smart boards. They have this little tabletop AI agent, which is like, again, it's cute, friends. So we've talked before about how cuteness is going to be essential for me in the world of robotics, but a tabletop AI agent that will sit on your desk, and it can be a voice assistant, it can be a smart webcam, it can be an AI note taker. So imagine anybody having a qualitative conversation. Now there's a little robot on your desk. Come on. Maybe the robot can actually ask questions, which we've had different devices doing similar things, but this is all integrated into one cute little robot.

Lenny Murphy: It's pretty cool.

Karen Lynch: Tabletop AI agents like that. Sign me up. I'm so there. It's like Alexa, but cute. Come on. And not necessarily tied just to Amazon, right? This is, this is a, anyway, I'm all for this little thing. Look it up, friends. It's really cute.

Lenny Murphy: I hear you. Now, I'm just waiting for The, do you guys remember Buck Rogers, The TV show, Buck Rogers and Twiggy, The little robot that he had. I'm waiting for The Twiggy, but anyway. Oh, it's my geek showing again. What's interesting too is think, okay, well, of course, integrating AI into everyday devices predictive things, data, but there's also this whole thing around edge computing, which is AI shifting now to being run on The device. And that's, you know, NVIDIA and, you know, I mean, these companies are, they're, we sometimes forget about The, when we're talking about The exponential change from a technology standpoint, because of AI, we think about AI capabilities, you know, leapfrogging every week. But the hardware side of that is happening as well. And we, that seems to be The whole, everything around that. And of course, wearables, we've been talking about that for, for years. There's lots of examples.

Karen Lynch: Let's talk about this example that I, that we pulled up. So, you know, of course, again, like at CES, there's a lot of talk about wearables, um, in addition to The robots and The, you know, um, you know, self-driving cars and computers and, you know, televisions and all this other great consumer electronics stuff. Razer has a project called Motoko, AI headphones as a more natural alternative to smart glasses. They look like headphones. And all of a sudden I'm like, yeah, that's cool. Like no obstacle there. The AI glasses still have that, there's something about them that makes me not want to fully embrace it. Now I know somebody, you know, somebody on our team bought them for their spouse over the holiday weekend. And I've dabbled with giving.

Lenny Murphy: Oh, really? Yes. I didn't know that. Okay, cool. I have to ask. I have to ask her about that. I know the sidebar.

Karen Lynch: Super cool, right? Super cool. So, literally, Lenny and I are not The ones with metaglasses, but you know, Jasmine's husband, all good things. But this idea of a more natural, putting them into a headset, is still like a camera on the head. On them, but it's completely built into headphones, which is a subculture in our country, and I believe the world of wearing a headset is fully accessible and non-invasive.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, they walk around with headphones at all times. We have to tell them, take the earphones out.

Karen Lynch: So there are people on subways with their headsets on. So that, nobody would think twice about walking around with a headset on. So this, I think, is really interesting. More natural, alternative as opposed to The smart glasses, which for some reason feel a little bit invasive and unnatural, right? Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. Well, and there's still The pragmatic issue until they are being sold at like LensCrafter or VisionWorks, you know, and we can, I can put my prescription lenses in it.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Well, yeah.

Lenny Murphy: I mean, that's just, that is just a pragmatic challenge for anybody. So accessibility has changed.

Karen Lynch: Right. So, um, anyway, super cool.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, I did. There was one thing I did want to shout out that there was a, uh, and I don't know if it was Roomba, but it was one of The, The robot vacuums that climbs upstairs.

Karen Lynch: Oh, come on. I need that. Yes. And I was like, okay, no, that's pretty cool. Now make sure that's actually, we were just talking over the holidays about we, we, I wish we had a room, but we have this golden retriever who sheds like mad.

Lenny Murphy: I know. We have to vacuum every day because of the dogs.

Karen Lynch: Actually, it's ridiculous. Well, anyway, I'm not going to say I don't vacuum every day, but there you go. We do our best to try to keep up with it, but we keep saying, too bad we can't have a Roomba, but our house is very split leveled everywhere. We have a lot of staircases, so a Roomba doesn't do our house. But if it's going up the stairs.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, it was what goes up the stairs.

Karen Lynch: Does it do The stairs on The way up? Because our golden retriever, it's on every step. It's ridiculous.

Lenny Murphy: I'm not sure I didn't dive into the details. I saw it, and it's like a flag. I want to go back and see that. My wife bought me a Roomba when they first came out for Father's Day. It was like 2007, 2006, right? And it was cool, but until it ran over dog poop, then it was not cool. But yeah, it's coming along. So there's a pragmatic example, right? I truly am not particularly excited about having a robot around the house, but a robot vacuum. Hell, yeah, I'm down.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, I know. Take that chore away from me. If it can fold laundry, then put it away.

Lenny Murphy: That's the folding.

Karen Lynch: But that's when my tabletop robot falls short. So let's move on to this tech crunch report. Tim Tim just said, you know, great money. Now we have to buy a Roomba. Let's keep Yeah, no, he knows because I mean, I'm telling you this conversation just in the last few days because I'm over it. Anyway, TechCrunch is reporting that OpenAI is reorganizing around audio AI ambitions for an audio first personal device within The year. So that's, you know, when you think about that, you're like, well, there's, you know, Alexa's audio first, like all this stuff is audio first, but what does it mean for OpenAI? It just means that we're shifting and we can get into this. There's, I think, an article on it later. I don't remember where it is now. But it's this whole idea, or maybe it's in here. This whole idea is, oh yeah, maybe it's this exact article. This shift away from screens towards an audio future.

Lenny Murphy: So back to headset, glasses.

Karen Lynch: Back to the headset, right? Will we be listening more and not as tied to our screens? Will scrolling even exist? Like, can we just take short-form audio? And anyway, it's interesting because I'm not an auditory learner. So audio has never been my preferred way to take in information. So I'm very curious about this particular trend. And I'm personally going to be watching it, like if this is where things are headed. Interesting.

Lenny Murphy: Now think about the research applications, right? No, I am an auditory learner. I am not translating to audio as my engagement mechanism. With technology. Yeah, that's why I'm not there yet. That still I don't talk to The current AI digs for around over The week over The holidays with doing that once and it just felt weird. Anyway, I was in a conversation with somebody about this yesterday . The form factor of how we engage research, we must act just like the transition from computer to phone and we resisted No, I want to ask 150 questions. As an industry, we have to go where our consumers are, where respondents are. And these technology trends are important to pay attention to because they're going to impact how we do our jobs. And isn't it also kind of funny that everything old is new again? I mean, we're kind of coming back to The world of telephone interviewing. At least. Interesting.

Karen Lynch:  Yeah, but it's not, it won't be so just right. Obviously, it will be your little tabletop robot, right? Administering a poll, which doesn't even seem like a stretch. I'm like, you know, Alexa will give us trivia questions, like every now and then we're sitting at my parents' dinner table. And she'll say, How about your trivia question of the day? And we're like, Alexa, we're not talking to you. Like, we're over here having wine. We don't need you to interrupt with the trivia but Alexa says, you know, hey, what are you, you know, quick poll, what are you having for dinner? That probably is happening. It's just not in my world. But this little tabletop robot asking, you know, asking, hey, can I take a quick poll? What kind of laptop are you using right now? Or something like that. Like if it's in an office or. Right.

Lenny Murphy: Which means they'll be listening all the time, collecting data. Which is probably a good segue. Yeah.

Karen Lynch: Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Yes. Uh, because all of these, everything we've just talked about, right. Fundamentally, they are devices that are, collecting in some form or fashion and utilizing data. Uh, whether it's The, The, The Roomba, whatever The, sorry, The staircase room, but him, uh, or, or, you know, The, The, uh, uh, Motoko. Or any of those things. So we saw this quickly out of The holidays, a whole bunch of announcements on data synthesis, companies that are making it easy and decreasing friction to aggregate, curate this data and push it out in the right ways.

Karen Lynch: So- I mean, I swear, like when I read this, there's a news article that came out that at CES, Instacart announced they've debuted a data hub, right? Offering to let brands and retailers collaborate on the data they're collecting, which I feel like when I Read it, I was like, wait, is that new? Or you and I just said, you know, maybe just a few weeks ago, Instacart's next because they have so much across all of The stores, right? They know when you're using it versus when you're not. Who's ordering, you know, like here, I'll make myself very visible. Who's ordering at, you know, 7 a.m. Because I can't get to the grocery store, but I don't have food for dinner. You know, and I'm planning my work day and I'm like, you know, I won't have the opportunity to go out, so I need to get a job. Or if it's 10 o'clock at night and I'm like, I need this food here before my workday starts in the morning so I can have dinner tomorrow night. Like, I am a weird Instacart person. And they know that about me now. Well, now all of you do too, but Instacart certainly doesn't. So it's just, it was a matter of time. We saw this one coming, here they are, so.

Lenny Murphy: And they call out specifically media measurement and activation, right? Which means attribution. And that's what all of these things, The live ramp, expand their data marketplace, which specifically is around agents and AI, The media radar, their data cloud to pipe AI ready marketing intelligence into data warehouses and AI platforms. So there's an angle that seems like The low hanging fruit of all of these big companies, big, you know, these are, are, you know, billion dollar organizations, uh, that are leveraging The data. The low hanging fruit is around, uh, not just marketing activation and optimization, but on measurement, which is firmly in our, uh, in The research wheelhouse.

Karen Lynch: Well, and of course it's capitalizing. All of these are capitalizing on The, um, The very strong need to trust The data that you have. And of course, these are sources of first person data. The Retail Dive, I think you found that one, The Retail Dive article, digs in, there's a great quote from it, that, which of course, like I can't find, but it's about basically, you know, basically saying like The retailers, they have, this is real, this is real data. You know, there's nothing fraudulent about it. It is actual customer data. And now we get to manage it and activate it. And so that was kind of a great piece there that first party customer data is it, is The answer to a lot of trust concerns right now.

Lenny Murphy: Absolutely. I was in a conversation before this, before we went live with a company that is kind of owning The ecosystem from, you know, insights to activation, right? Yeah. Their largest concern, from a competitive standpoint, they're The company in The supplier space, is The retailers. So, they are doing exactly the same thing, arguably cheaper, faster, potentially better, at least from a data quality standpoint, because they didn't fake that somebody bought a Roomba for The stairs, Tim.

Karen Lynch: The... You know that our algorithms are gonna be like, in a matter of days.

Lenny Murphy: Yes. And that's just the changing dynamic of the industry, right? So when we get into all of these things around tech, and you're like, what the hell does this have to do with research? Because fundamentally, it's around data. And we are seeing, here's concrete examples of that, this transforming The industry that we're in.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, pretty cool.

Lenny Murphy: Speaking of that, we've got a couple more things to get.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. So I don't know, you know, I got very tripped up semantically on Sircon launching this liquid testing tool. That's one of the launches we want to share. Um, yeah. Speeding in store decision-making with AI powered insights. I got really tripped up on this, you know, go to this article and I'm like liquid testing tool liquid and I get tripped up on The word. So I'd love to talk to the naming people because it's not liquid. I think it's trying to communicate, um, fluidity.

Lenny Murphy: It's sort of like The dynamic now.

Karen Lynch: Like, don't call it liquid, because I kept picturing, what is it, qualities that had The, like, measuring, The tool, The new tool to measure, measure liquid in your cup and talk about, like, people's consumption behaviors through sensory measures. Anyway, that is not what we're talking about here. We're talking about this very fluidly.

Lenny Murphy: Sorry, that came out of the blue. Apologies.

Karen Lynch: Fluid, kind of fluid tool, real-time, ever-changing. So. 

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. Yeah. And Sarkana, right. You get a data company.

Lenny Murphy: Data company. Yeah. The old IRI and MPD, right. You know, fundamentally kind of a syndicated core to The most syndicated purchase data. Yeah. You know, shelf data. Yeah. So that was interesting. Then HarrisQuest, Quest DIY, added AI reporting from our friends at Displayer. Shout out to our friends at Displayer. They're a partner of GRIT, right? Love displays or they power all of our analytics internally for grit. I'll say over the holiday, I used just personal stuff, a whole lot more notebook LM. They added an analytics component. Jesus, this is just crazy. The ability to get from information to an output, presentations that are not, it's not AI slop. It's like, damn, that is so good. I wouldn't have structured the presentation of that information that way because I'm not imaginative enough to do it. And wow, how much more impactful than anything I could have ever done trying to create a PowerPoint. And it's just an example of that, right? We see that companies like Displayer, et cetera, are decreasing friction to get from data. To actionable insights and how that's communicated.

Karen Lynch: So I just want to sidebar on what you're saying. It's related. So, you know, and I did, it's further up in The brief and we, you know, moved past, but chat GPT also has people signing up for a wait list for, uh, chat GPT health. And, um, over The break, I did not feel well. And, um, you know, and I, I'm like sitting on my couch and I'm like, you know, it's one of those, like, how many times have I looked at a spreadsheet or a chart that says, It's this if it's a cold, it's this if it's The flu, it's this if it's COVID. What is it again? This one came on fast, or this one started slowly, or this started with a sore throat, and this started with a runny nose. All of these minor things when you're trying to figure out what's wrong with you, and do I need a doctor? So I have already been using chat GPT lightly for my health. Why do you think my knee hurts today? Why do you think my toe hurts today? Minor things. But now there's a whole platform that they're developing that I've got on The waitlist for because I'm like, well, I need to check this out. My point, why am I sharing all of this? My point is that, like you're talking about notebook LLM and it's like, damn, this is good. And now I'm sitting here thinking, damn, that's going to be good. And I think that I know you and I are ahead of The curve for a lot of this stuff in terms of use cases, but it's getting so much better. And I, I, I just love it. Like I love that, that this technology exists, you know, and I know it's nerve wracking and I know it's threatening for people and, and I know that it's worrisome for people, but it is improving lives greatly.

Lenny Murphy: Well, and on that note, right over The, maybe this week or some point recently, uh, uh, HHS is really pushing wearables for personal health managers. And they're driven by AI right and there's there are a couple over The past weeks I've had a chance to kind of get exposed to to your point So it's there's a very pragmatic example, right of these technologies making a very personal impact on Just how we manage The quality of our life from a health standpoint overall I'm back. I'm The low car bandwagon, right and Yeah, I've needed to do it for a couple, you know, I'd lost all that weight and I gave it all back back. And now I got it. I'm too fat. I got to lose. Anyway, the point is, of, you know, like, I'm going to quantify this, I don't have a wearable to do that. But I'm going to quantify what my my, my intake is, and, you know, and look for patterns, etc, etc. And I, the fact that I could do that via I plug in, you know, here's what I ate today, you know, here's my carb count. That 's a sense of empowerment.

Karen Lynch:  Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, absolutely. To kind of just quantify these things and have tools that can help me materially benefit and impact my life. I have a chronic health condition. You know, I'm always looking for triggers, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, excited about all those things.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, it's just really exciting. And I think The idea there, The we have shifted to a new era with and I because I feel like we've talked about this maybe like two years ago, you know, like when we were when I was we I won't say we when I was obsessing about The Oura Ring and all that data. And I've hit the point where I'm like, well, this has been great. I don't really know if I'm getting anything seismic from my Oura Ring anymore. But then I just got an invitation to a study to help them understand blood pressure. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. If a wearable can help monitor, if a kind of non-obtuse wearable can help you monitor your blood pressure, talking right now we're talking to there are great benefits because wouldn't it be great if instead of just saying you seem to be stressed which happens when I'm excited or stressed it happens when I have an animated day because of course my heart rates up because I'm talking on The phone more versus you know a day on The couch those are like The two extremes and I'm like like The mood ring right right it's probably gonna tell me I'm very stressed right now just because I'm doing this that's not stressed that's just just like excitement and adrenaline and just a little more energy put forth. So those sorts of things bother me. But the idea that it could monitor blood pressure, right, that feels very, suddenly feels profound again. So I think these technological advances, anyway, that's a different podcast. I don't know why we're, I don't know why I brought us here, didn't I? It's all me. No, but you know what?

Lenny Murphy: But that actually does tie everything together, right? We've mentioned this several times, you know, we are in the era of unlocking the value of integrating technology, physical hardware, right? Whether it's a ring or wearable or glasses or your car, you know, your fridge, The room before The stairs, anything like that. In synthesizing that data and unlocking more value creation from the data utilizing these tools. That is The world that has been rapidly taking shape. This is The year, The trigger because of The integration from a hardware standpoint, physical stuff, that it will just continue to see The acceleration of that, unlocking all of those things. And from a research standpoint, ultimately, we want people to do things that benefit, well, The sponsor of The research, but hopefully benefits them as well, The individual, you know. And health is a huge component of that, even from a, you know, from a spend standpoint. Biopharma is one of the largest spenders in market research. Role.

Karen Lynch: Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: So yeah, huge implications. But we can go on and on. Capital moves. 

Karen Lynch: Terrible segue. But yeah, let's talk about these capital moves. Lots of kinds of partnerships were announced in the last few weeks. So let's just touch on how many do we have here? So we'll touch on six of them. But we can go pretty rapidly through them, right? You want to take this first one? I know very little about this.

Lenny Murphy: I actually don't know that much about them either. So yes, we can move to that one. Clearwater Analytics, public company going private, again, they were private, went public, now they're going private again. $8.4 billion by Premier Warburg Pincus. But it's fundamentally an analytics company. So they, I think, specialize in financial services. But, yeah, The point is, you know, major investment for a company that's leveraging data to create value around specific categories and business issues. Now going private. And what happens when a company goes private is that means they're going to grow. So the public companies have a lot of, it can be tough for public companies. So The, so go private, they'll retool, they'll streamline. And I guarantee you that they will start with, with some acquisitions. So it'd be interesting to see what they think they need. Similar note, pure spectrum. They were already private equity backed. Associates, a big PE firm, came in and replaced their existing private equity. I think that it wasn't disclosed, but my guess was that it was a pretty big deal from a financial standpoint. What will they do? Pure Spectrum will more likely start making some acquisitions. Because they're making that play of not just the sample, but data, right? They'd already plugged into Qualtrics and we're building synthetic.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. And this, um, and there's a quote in The, in The release about this one from Dylan Hallman, senior VP at TA. And he said, market research is undergoing a meaningful shift towards greater automation and AI enabled workflows as demand for high quality human data and sophisticated response validation continues to grow. Like I look at this and I'm like, yes, that all feels like very matter of fact, but, but it's The money bet on it continues to grow. It is growing. He just continues to grow friends.

Lenny Murphy: So 100% I continue to hear rumors, you know, of, uh, of different things, you know, uh, around all of this, uh, panel companies, high quality panel companies, um, uh, going in lots of interesting ways. Directions and lots of different investors and companies. So I think The user interviews acquired by user testing and The first client's like, well, yeah, of course they would. Why wouldn't they do that? By Tama Bravo, which is building a hell of a stack in the inside space. Really, they really are. But user interviews are really a recruitment engine, right? So access to people, that's a big chunk of what users interview about their real differentiation. So obviously, the triage of user testing and having access to, you know, I mean, that just makes so much sense to me.

Karen Lynch:  I'm like, well, yes, of course.

Lenny Murphy: Yes. But in the press release, that's not what they focused on. They didn't talk about the kind of arbitrage opportunities there, which were no brainers talking about AI optimization, utilizing access to the people. So yeah.

Karen Lynch: Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Oh, this, there was a mistake here, The next thing Norstat, it wasn't they acquired sample solutions, they acquired offer wise. Oh, that's okay. Sorry, I just noticed The and suddenly Norstat's been buying up panel companies, high quality panel companies, more, they've been more European focused and now offer more Latam, than The Hispanic market, right? That's truly kind of their focus. But Norstat is acquiring lots of very high quality panel assets and consolidating them. And although they haven't talked about that publicly that I've heard, I'm sure it's about The data feed. So, yeah, I went on and on. You want to talk about MarketLogic?

Karen Lynch: Well, yeah, I mean, MarketLogic announced partnership with Zappy, you know, in this one, like, you know, we try to pull up quotes from each one when I can pull them up and kind of highlight them on my browser here for you guys, but united by a joint agentic AI framework, this collaboration is going to bring together advanced AI capabilities from both companies. So I just think that's, you know, like two strong organizations in our industry joining forces, right? This is one of those consolidations that makes two powerhouses even stronger, in my opinion.

Lenny Murphy: It's a clear partnership. But both of them are private equity backed, and I'm willing to bet that there's somebody going, hmm. What would that chocolate and peanut butter actually look like,

Karen Lynch: This is when you think about life as an investor. Yeah, that chocolate peanut butter, would that be like if those were together?

Lenny Murphy: I wonder what other ones are, you know, that we're going to see, we're going to see a lot of it this year. And that's all this piece, right? We said this is going to be your consolidation. We'll see lots of early stage startups that just, you know, knock it out of The park. The, but we're going to see a lot of consolidations driven by private equity, like this, because it's just The market that this last one, I think was Robinhood in Susquehanna. Yep. To vertically integrate prediction markets with futures exchanges. Now this is a, so I, for many years, worked as an advisor for a prediction market company here in, uh, who knew right here, uh, in the research space. I mean, you can give the shit away. Truly. I mean, it was hard to do prediction markets. Um, uh, and, and, Uh, something swap, something switched over The past few years. And we have this big, you know, calcium poly market. I mean, these are unicorns. These are multi-billion dollar valued companies, their prediction markets. And yes, a piece of their business is betting, you know, sports betting, but you can bet on anything on that.

Karen Lynch: Um, but the data sets are larger, right. And, and, you know, because the data sets are larger and now the capabilities are stronger, I think there is more confidence in these prediction markets. Like it's, Now we're, because they, that's what's happened there. So there's a little more confidence in predictive ability. And anyway, yeah, as somebody who dabbles in sports betting, that is an untrue statement. So that's not really what I mean. I participate in a football pool every year. So that is the extent of it. But I do look at the, you know, kind of betting odds, and I think they're predicting this team to win this week. And I think it's really interesting. So to think about predictive analytics in that way, how do they have all this information? How are the different predictive algorithms pulling up somebody different or different point spreads or whatever? I think it's really interesting. But they are getting better and better. And usually they're, they're right, unless there's some sort of an upset that The machines couldn't.

Lenny Murphy: Right. The past couple election cycles, you know, The prediction markets really were, were The early that they were right early at a very high level. And I think what's interesting, too, and week, I know we're going up. We both know we're gonna go.

Karen Lynch: Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: But it is that they are all based on The idea of The wisdom of The crowd. Right? So humans, human intuition, human data, you know, it's a human making The bet. And whatever drives whatever your particular methodology is, as an individual, you know, my gut says, or, you know, I've calculated the odds, regardless, leveraging that collective wisdom of people, Yeah. And to predict future events. It's incredibly interesting. And it's been out there for a long time. It seems like it's time has come. And you got Robin Hood and Susquehanna combining to say, yep, we want to do this. That's just incredibly interesting. And it could be a great way to make money. I mean, I don't do that. But I'm stupid for not.

Karen Lynch: No, no, no, no. Not stupid.

Lenny Murphy: Well, maybe not stupid, but I'm pretty sure there's been a few things and like, if I'd bet on that, I could have paid off my house.

Karen Lynch: I didn't. So I know, but yeah, no, we should ask everybody, give us your prediction about whether Tim has already looked up the cost. With what certainty do we have that Tim has already looked that up to see if we're going to get one of those. So because he did it with something else. I'm like, yeah, no, we're not doing it for that. Something else on this show, he looked up and it happened pretty quickly.

Lenny Murphy: It's already on Instacart, they're already on their way. On Instacart.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Not in the middle of the day. This is not my time.

Lenny Murphy: Oh, okay. Okay. Well, he's making the order, not you. So, yeah.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, he doesn't mind the errand. Again, human behavior is interesting. He doesn't mind taking a break and running to The store. I don't do that. If I'm taking a break, it's because I want to take a walk or do something. I don't want to leave. Leave this environment to go to that environment, that is not a work day behavior.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, me too. I have a hard time switching. A short break is one thing, but a task that's hard for me to do.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, he has done it, Nancy.

Lenny Murphy: All right, there's The bet. Anyway, it's great to be back. I'm sure I missed you. I missed all of you.

Karen Lynch: Same, same.

Lenny Murphy: It's going to be a fun year.

Karen Lynch: Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Buckle up. Buckle up, buttercup.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Thanks everybody. Have a good one.

Lenny Murphy: Bye.

Links from the episode:

MRII opened applications for the Reg Baker Career Advancement Award for emerging research professionals 

Tech Buzz frames CES 2026 as the dawn of “physical AI” 

Vibe Bot is an AI agent that sits on your desk 

CES 2026 Live: Best of Show, Rollable Display Concepts, AI Toys and Dancing Robots 

Razer thinks you’d rather have AI headphones instead of glasses 

OpenAI bets big on audio as Silicon Valley declares war on screens 

OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Health 

Instacart debuted a Data Hub 

Retail’s data moment: Why trusted customer data is the new competitive edge 

LiveRamp expanded its Data Marketplace to include data, models and agents for AI workloads 

MediaRadar launched Data Cloud 

Circana launched a Liquid Testing Tool to speed in-store decision-making with AI-powered insights 

HarrisQuest’s QuestDIY added AI reporting via Displayr 

Clearwater Analytics agreed to be taken private for $8.4B by a Permira–Warburg Pincus–led group to support deeper integration and growth 

PureSpectrum announced a strategic partnership with TA Associates 

UserTesting (Thoma Bravo) acquired User Interviews 

Norstat acquired Sample Solutions 

Market Logic announced a technology partnership with Zappi 

Vertical Integration of Prediction Markets and Futures Exchanges