Case Study: Quadrant Strategies Halves Research Time and Cost with Discuss AI
By Discuss
- case study
- AI Moderated Interviews
- Qualitative Data Analysis
- Conversational AI
Quadrant Strategies is a full-service market research firm specialising in brand positioning and corporate reputation for hard-to-reach audiences, including global technology companies. The firm faced three compounding pressures: clients demanded faster, lower-cost research while finance teams scrutinised every scope; senior researchers spent hours on low-judgment tasks such as transcription, quote-pulling, and reformatting rather than strategic work; and sophisticated clients required documented evidence of AI-enabled research outcomes to support their own internal AI adoption mandates. Traditional sequential qualitative methods could not resolve any of these pressures simultaneously.
Quadrant adopted Discuss, using its AI Agents capability to run large-scale qualitative interviews simultaneously across markets, replacing sequential manual sessions. AI-assisted analysis handled theme identification, quote-flagging, and pattern-finding, reducing the time between session completion and client-ready output. A three-layer model was applied: AI managed routine data collection, AI and researchers collaborated on pattern-finding, and strategic interpretation remained with senior staff. Discuss also provided a centralised, searchable repository enabling longitudinal analysis across all completed studies on a single platform.
Quadrant cut research project turnaround in half and reduced cost per project by half. Researchers redirected time previously spent on low-judgment tasks toward strategic analysis and client counsel. A new proprietary weekly intelligence product, DC Navigator, was launched using overnight AI-moderated interviews with Washington policy insiders, a cadence that was not viable under traditional methods. Clients received concrete evidence of AI-enabled research outcomes to support their own internal AI adoption cases.
“AI is really helping to fulfill the promise of being strategists, not order takers.” — Afshin Mohamadi, Partner, Quadrant Strategies
Read the full version of this case study on the Discuss website here.
