AI: Powering-Up Insights Conference 2026

09.00 Registration and coffee

09.45 Welcome and extended opening address from the Chair
Michalis A. Michael, Founder & CEO, Listening247

10.05 Inside Heineken's flavour innovation: can AI personas boost novelty?
Heineken partnered with MMR Research Worldwide to explore whether AI personas – chat-based interfaces built from real consumer data could generate more novel and diverse flavour and product ideas for early-stage innovation. Building on Heineken’s existing use of AI personas from MMR, the project introduced an Agentic Ideation feature that iteratively enriches ideas using additional internal and external data. This session will present results from a blinded experiment and reveal how ideas from this new Agentic Ideation Pipeline are perceived by both consumers and stakeholders.
Will AI personas redefine what’s possible in flavour/product innovation? Join us to find out, and see what this could mean for the future of new product development.
Alexandra Kuzmina, Innovation Director: Discovery, MMR Research Worldwide
Sophie Read, Innovation Insights Manager, HEINEKEN UK

10.35 Grease, grit & GPT: what AI really does for B2B insight
Shell shares candid lessons from applying AI across global B2B insight projects highlighting strategic and operational efficiencies that have been achieved. The session showcases how AI has been leveraged to drive ideation, accelerate innovation, refine segmentation, support CVP development and synthesise complex datasets into actionable intelligence.
It will also, assess the limitations of AI when researching niche B2B audiences, and the credibility risks and rewards that can arise when AI outputs fall short of stakeholder expectations.
Discover where AI truly adds value, how to navigate its pitfalls, and whether to partner with agencies or tech firms to unlock its full potential.
Ian Holt, HDEO and Fleet Insight Lead, Shell
Pooja Amin, Industry + Off Highway Insight Lead, Shell

11.05 Morning refreshments

11.35 Talking to your data: how JAB democratised quant without sacrificing rigour
AI often fuels qualitative analysis, but what about complex quantitative data? JAB Pet Services faced that challenge when seeking growth opportunities in pet consumer behaviour. Their insights were locked in raw survey data, usable only by analysts. The solution wasn’t handing data to Copilot, but building a safe way for teams to “talk” to quant. Partnering with a specialist AI platform, JAB automated expert-grade statistical analysis and generated machine-readable presentations optimised for LLMs enabling marketing, product, and other teams to instantly query validated insights. This case study shows how rigorous automation enables scalable, democratic access to quant.
Guillaume Aimetti, Co-founder and CTO, Inspirient GmbH
Anne Motan, Special Advisor, JAB Pet Services

12.05 SPONSORED SESSION
From surveys to conversations: how AI-moderated interviews elevate data quality
Can a survey feel like a real conversation? Human Highway and Glaut set out to find out. In a nationally representative study of 1,000 Italians, half completed a standard questionnaire while the other half interacted with Glaut’s AI-moderated interviews, dynamic, voice-enabled, and adaptive in real time.
This session reveals how AI can transform survey research by operationalising qualitative techniques at scale: probing, clustering, and refining responses automatically. Discover how this approach delivered deeper insights, higher engagement and a scalable way to blend human depth with quantitative rigour.
Matteo Cera, CEO, Glaut
Veronica Valli, Head of Research, Glaut

12.20 From static segments to living simulations: inside E.ON Next’s AI-powered transformation
E.ON Next wanted to do more than categorise customers – they wanted to understand them. Working with Verve’s Intelligent Personas & Simulations (VIPS), they created AI-driven personas that learn from thousands of real customer voices, data patterns and cultural cues.
Representing nine distinct personalities, these VIPS have become trusted decision-making companions across insight, marketing, propositions and CRM, bringing customers into every conversation. Discover how E.ON Next turned segmentation into simulation, empowering teams to sense-check tone, test ideas in real time, and make faster, smarter, more human decisions.
Edward Vargeson, Business Director, Verve
In conversation with
Matthew Bickham, Head of Insight, E.ON Next

12.50 Lunch

13.50 Are LLMs still WEIRD?
Most LLMs used in enterprise settings are trained on data that has ‘WEIRD’ characteristics (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). A 2023 Harvard study found the greater the cultural distance between a country and the USA, the less accurate ChatGPT got at simulating peoples’ values.
STRAT7’s new research tests US and non-US LLMs on attitudes, values, and moral dilemmas, benchmarking against real data from the US, UK, France, India and Malaysia. This session will examine the results, the implications for model choices and necessary mitigations for delivering credible global insights.
Hasdeep Sethi, Group AI Lead, STRAT7
Ross Denton, Research Director, STRAT7

14.20 Moving beyond the genre trap: leveraging AI for enhanced content metadata
ITV’s streaming service, ITVX, now offers 25 times more content than ITV Hub, but much of this library risks remaining unseen. To address this, ITV has developed AI-driven products to enhance the quality and breadth of its content metadata, enabling improved discoverability and personalisation. Moving beyond simple genre labels, these solutions map relationships between titles and apply thematic, emotional, and topical tagging.
Built in close collaboration between Content Insight and Data Science teams, this work provides a truly tailored viewing experience for the audience. It also demonstrates the benefits of building solutions in-house, ultimately driving real, measurable business value.
George Tipping, Lead Data Scientist, ITV
Aaron Walker, Data Scientist, ITV

14.50 Convenience meets intelligence: Co-op’s AI-enhanced store evolution
Co-op, with Human8, leveraged AI to transform its store experience, moving beyond traditional research methods. Insights from a 16,000-member customer community were synthesised using AI, uncovering hidden patterns and challenging assumptions. Generative AI then powered ideation, creating mini concept cards that visualised diverse customer solutions. These were refined through co-creation sessions, blending AI-driven insights with human empathy. This session highlights how advanced AI supported every stage, from data synthesis to creative exploration to validation, demonstrating how market research teams can harness AI to unlock novel, customer-led innovation at scale.
Jessica Shakespeare, Director, Human8
Molly Hilton, Research Analyst, Co-op

15.20 Afternoon refreshments

15.50 Evolving impact: reimagining the client/agency model with AI
Qualitative insight is under pressure to match the speed and scale of AI while preserving the emotional depth and cultural nuance that make it powerful. This presentation explores how Bumble and Firefish partnered to meet this challenge and built a new blueprint for fast, empathetic, and actionable research.
Over 12 projects and 15 months, our client–agency relationship evolved from a test-and-learn pilot to a genuine transformation partnership - reshaping how insight is delivered, how investment is allocated, and how agencies operate within client organisations. Together, we’ve redefined the balance between automation and empathy, proving that AI can scale understanding without losing the human truth at its heart.
Adrien Louis Weinert, Head of AI research, Firefish
Dylan Brownsword, Head of Marketing Research, Bumble

16.20 The expertise paradox: why AI tools need better researchers, not fewer
What happens when a generation of researchers learns prompting AI instead of developing research skills and when expert researchers outsource too much of their own critical thinking to AI? As the industry rushes to adopt AI tools, we risk undermining the very expertise that gives researchers their value.
This interactive workshop explores how the sector can ensure research expertise evolves, not diminishes, in the age of AI. Through a fast-paced, participatory exercise, delegates will experience how different questioning approaches generate different insights. Together, we’ll consider how agencies and individuals can safeguard the critical thinking, contextual judgement, and cultural literacy that keep human researchers indispensable and ensure the talent pipeline remains strong as AI reshapes the discipline.
Led by Ramona Daniel, Cultural Insights & Strategy, Twenty3

16.50 Closing comments from the Chair

17.00 Close of conference