How AI is Multiplying Team Capabilities Without Growing Headcount

By Conveo

• article

• AI
• Artificial Intelligence
• Qualitative Research
• Conversational AI
• Video Research
• AI Interviews

I’ve spent countless hours sitting next to researchers across different industries and functions, and there’s one thing that consistently surprises me: it’s not budget constraints that limit research, it’s time.

When we ask our customers about their biggest challenges, we hear the same story over and over: “90% of the research we wish we could do, we couldn’t do before”. And here’s the kicker, it’s not because they don’t have the budget, it’s because they simply don’t have the time.

This article covers part of the The Founders & Leaders Series podcast episode 4. Listen to the full episode here:

The Reality of Today’s Research Teams

Researchers today are incredibly overworked. They have too many briefings, and insights teams often don’t receive enough resources. It’s a team that’s constantly under pressure, with marketing and R&D teams breathing down their necks for new concepts and faster answers.

But here’s what gets me excited: AI isn’t replacing researchers, it’s giving them superpowers.

Buying Talent Through Technology

Think about it this way: when you implement AI research tools, you’re essentially hiring talent without actually hiring. You’re scaling your team’s capabilities without scaling your headcount.

We’ve seen customers tell us they can now conduct research in instances where they previously wouldn’t have done any research at all. Instead of relying purely on intuition, which is still important, they now get real human insights on top of that because AI enables it. That’s huge.

From PDF Graveyards to Revenue Drivers

I’ve written dozens of reports myself that end up as PDFs stored on some digital shelf, never to be looked at again. But something fundamental has changed.

The other day, I was on a call with one of our biggest customers, and they told me it was one of the first times that insights or data collected from a research platform travelled all the way to the revenue-generating functions of their company. We’ve had examples where videos collected on our platform literally helped secure shelf space in supermarkets.

This isn’t just about better, faster, cheaper research – although that’s table stakes. It’s about having maximal impact. When your insights drive top-line growth and you have that visibility and impact, you would be foolish to argue against the insights department.

The Iterative Research Revolution

Instead of thinking about “qual at scale”, a term that makes researchers politely applaud but doesn’t really capture what excites them, I’d rather talk about rapid iterative qual.

The world’s changing faster than ever. New products, health trends, social media phenomena… The need for research has increased significantly and is expected to continue growing. But now you have these powerful AI tools that compress project timelines from weeks to days.

As a researcher, you can now take the lead in terms of strategic thinking and collaborating with stakeholders. If I were a researcher today, I would never have been more excited about the possibilities.

Beyond Traditional Boundaries

What we’re discovering is that multimodal AI analysis can capture things that traditional research missed. When someone opens their fridge and says, “I eat very healthy”, the AI can see that the fridge is actually stocked with Coke and probe that dissonance – just like a skilled researcher would do in someone’s home.

It’s like having perfect memory, speaking any language, and being able to analyse not just what people say, but how they say it and what they show you. That opens up entirely new research possibilities.

The Path Forward

We’re still in the “faster horse” phase of this transformation. Many faster horses are being built today, but we’re only just starting to discover what the car could look like.

The key is reimagining the insights function enabled by AI, and that’s something that needs to be explored together with clients. It’s not about replacing the human researcher, but about amplifying their impact and enabling them to do work that simply wasn’t possible before.

The researchers who embrace these tools aren’t just surviving the AI revolution, they’re leading it.

This article covers part of the The Founders & Leaders Series podcast episode 4. Listen to the full episode here:

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