Trust and Temptation
06 February 2026

Authored by Daniel Culshaw, Operations Director at B2B International

We are at an inflection point in history. Not only is the speed of change in our working and home lives changing, but how change happens is changing too. Our trust in news, information, data, our governments, science, climate change, global order and, well, everything we know is being tested as AI ramps up, and enables a new era of faster, cheaper, better/worse (delete as you like) and easier…

Easier is the big selling point and how we are being tempted. AI sells itself on making things pretty effortless or even fully autonomous. Just tell your smart watch to book you a holiday and it will check your diary, know your passport details, book flights and hotels and more. It all sounds very tempting, but would you trust it to get it right? Would you rather actually do it yourself? Is the enjoyment of the holiday not just the holiday but oohing and ahhing over pictures of beaches and bijoux restaurants as you search for a great deal?

In our world, the world of insights, data, fieldwork, translations and more, the above applies. How does AI fit into MR? How do clients feel about it? How do our own teams feel about it? Should we be worrying about the loss of human creativity, our energy footprint and the hallucinations, or should we be excited about the new value it can bring? New products, automated data quality checks, high quality transcription, “qual at scale”.

At IQCS, we have been looking into the AI tools and solutions that are available and will be available. It is not simple to issue guidance on what should or should not be used when new tools, agents and use cases appear so quickly. Our members range from those that do not use AI at all, to ones that have been experimenting with some very advanced use cases around quality processes and beyond. We all want to know that we are doing the right thing and making the right choices now and navigate currently unknown choices as the appear.

How are you doing this? How do you feel about where you should use AI in our operations, and where you shouldn’t? Do you trust it? Is it a guilty temptation to reduce cost and time, or just a no-brainer? How do you talk to your clients about it?

Let’s talk about it together… feel free to comment below, or on our linkedin post [include link] – this conversation will continue at the MRS Operations Network: AI Adoption – Trust and Temptation event on 3^rd March, where panel members will explore AI adoption, trust issues, and the temptation to overextend AI capabilities.

This event supports the MRS Campaign for Better Data - Because our tomorrow depends upon trusting data today

Misinformation and data quality issues pose a growing risk, which technology has the potential to magnify. Against this backdrop, MRS is calling on the research sector to increase its vigilance - boosting standards and future-proofing our sector. Discover our resources to help you improve trust in data.