Explore the IIEX West Agenda

How do you predict what a trend will mean, and for whom, before the group holding it even exists? We tracked one signifier, 'raw', through 278 Nextatlas outcomes and a hand-kept archive since 2012 — from food, to wellness, to libertarian raw milk, to brutalist design, to today's anti-algorithmic posting. LLMs guess the next word. Foresight has to guess the next world. Key Takeaways:  1. Extensional and intensional signal move independently, track both 2. Antonym velocity moves faster than the term itself, Pay attention to what a signifier refuses. 3. Meaning is carried by actants: humans, microbiomes, algorithms, regulators, all at once.

AI moderation is evolving rapidly, but not all approaches are designed to achieve the same outcomes. Based on an independent research-on-research initiative, this session introduces a practical framework to help insights leaders evaluate AI moderation solutions, align them with specific research objectives, and make more confident, strategic adoption decisions. Key Takeaways: 1. Learn how different AI moderation approaches are designed to solve different research needs. 2. Apply a practical framework for evaluating AI moderation solutions. 3. Identify where AI, human expertise, or a hybrid approach creates the greatest value.

Insights has become increasingly specialized, with different disciplines developing their own methods, languages, and organizational homes. Yet the problems we solve remain remarkably similar. So what happens when we look beyond our own corner? This session challenges us to look sideways, learn from what adjacent disciplines have already figured out, and bring those lessons into our own work. Key Takeaways: 1. Discover practical strengths worth borrowing from adjacent insights disciplines. 2. Learn how to cross research boundaries to expand your influence and impact. 3. See how to make your expertise more adaptable as roles and industries evolve.

Some of the best ideas at IIEX West will not come from the stage. They will emerge through candid conversations among peers. Join our small-group roundtables to exchange perspectives, tackle the questions shaping the future of insights, and learn how others are navigating similar challenges. Roundtable seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Choose the topic most relevant to your work, bring your experience and curiosity, and leave with fresh thinking, practical ideas, and new industry connections. Roundtable Topics & Hosts 1.Beyond NPS — Rethinking how we measure loyalty, advocacy, and purchase intent. Hosted by Chris Hauck 2.Customer Decision Making — Understanding the real drivers behind how people choose. Hosted by Christopher Brace 3.Insights Influence & Socialization — Getting the right people to hear, trust, and act on findings. Hosted by Allison Rak 4.Research Operations & Scaling Lean — Building efficient research infrastructure with limited resources. Hosted by Z Johnson 5.Startup Mentality in Insights — Bringing speed, agility, and experimentation to research practice. Hosted by Rob Volpe 6.The Evolving Panel & Sample Ecosystem — Reimagining who we talk to and how we reach them. Hosted by Amy Spencer 7.The ROI of Insights — Quantifying the value of research in a faster, cheaper world. Hosted by Gary Rudman 8.UX + Market Research Convergence — Building stronger decisions when two disciplines become one. Hosted by Lauren Isaacson

Some of the best ideas at IIEX West will not come from the stage. They will emerge through candid conversations among peers. Join our small-group roundtables to exchange perspectives, tackle the questions shaping the future of insights, and learn how others are navigating similar challenges. Roundtable seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Choose the topic most relevant to your work, bring your experience and curiosity, and leave with fresh thinking, practical ideas, and new industry connections. Roundtable Topics & Hosts 1.AI Ethics & Governance in Research — Setting boundaries for responsible AI use in insights work. Hosted by Lauren McCluskey 2.Behavioral Economics in Practice — Designing research around how people actually think and decide. Hosted by Will Leach 3.Customer Experience Design & Measurement — Closing the gap between brand promise and customer reality. Hosted by Paula Rosecky 4.Data Quality — Confronting fraud, fatigue, and reliability across the research ecosystem. Hosted by Mickey Hill 5.Democratizing Research / DIY Tools — Expanding access to research without sacrificing quality. Hosted by Andy Garlikov 6.Quantifying Qualitative Data — Preserving depth and nuance when qualitative methods go broad. Hosted by Katrina Noelle 7.Storytelling with Data — Turning findings into narratives that move people to act. Hosted by Marc Engel 8.Synthetic Insights — Separating the signal from the hype in non-human respondent research. Hosted by Julie Knox

AI is reshaping the world of work – and the experience of workers,  it is reshaping their confidence, decision-making, and sense of control. Sometimes transformative, but often not, AI technology is in a critical phase, entering a new horizon where it evolves beyond hype and into concrete, powerful applications. Join us to discover how the future of work is being built. Step from hype to human. Key Takeaways: 1. How human values, beliefs and experiences define the true potential of AI technology. 2. How cultural forces inform Microsoft’s leading approach to the future of business. 3. How AI transformation can be delivered, in. real contexts, with Human-Centric Impact.

No insights team, no tracking data, no big budget. One year later: insights sat at the board table, reshaping portfolio, value-based pricing and channel strategy—and the company doubled its growth rate. Hear the client and consultant tell how one fieldwork powered U&A, segmentation, volumetrics and conjoint, and how three winning decisions cascaded through every level of the organization. Key Takeaways: 1. Run U&A, segmentation, volumetrics and pricing conjoint on one fieldwork, and one budget 2. Turn consumer knowledge into portfolio, value-based pricing and channel growth drivers 3. How insights co-built across every level of the company rose to shape decisions in the boardroom

Stakeholder buy-in drives research impact, as AI reshapes how we earn it. This session shows how tools like Miro and Figma enable async collaboration during fielding and analysis—inviting co-creation and diverse perspectives. Learn how pairing these methods with emerging AI analysis techniques deepens human understanding of customers, turning insight generation into a shared, actionable journey. Key Takeaways: 1. Stakeholder buy-in remains essential — AI has not changed that collaboration is still critical. 2. Fielding & analysis: prime zones for stakeholder co-creation via interactive boards. 3. Pairing AI + human collaboration yields more meaningful customer understanding.

Gen Z doesn’t distrust institutions by accident, they learned to. Raised through financial crises, misinformation, and broken promises, they trust peers and independent research over traditional authority. Gary Rudman explores how they seek truth in comments, Reddit, reviews, and personal (not always vetted) research instead of official narratives. Key Takeaways: 1. Gen Z trust must be earned, not assumed 2. Gen Z finds their own truth via social media triangulation 3. Transparency builds credibility

"Most researchers receive “clean” datasets but rarely examine how they were built or the ecosystem behind them. Drawing on experience from both the sample supplier and brand sides, Natasha Gay explores how sourcing, cleaning, and AI involvement can remain opaque to buyers. Learn practical questions to evaluate data quality, strengthen vendor partnerships, and make more confident decisions. Key Takeaways:  1. Ask smarter questions to uncover what’s behind your data 2. Spot hidden risks in sample, cleaning, and respondent quality 3. Understand where AI shapes results—and who’s accountable"

Learn how to get real insights out of your synthetic personas. Are you using synthetic personas but wondering how to extract real, reliable value from them?Join Emilie Faget and Cyril Croutelle, to bridge the gap between AI-generated personas and actionable market research. During our session, we will show you exactly how to interact with synthetic personas to extract the best, most accurate data. Key Takeaways: 1. Learn how to extract real, reliable value from synthetic personas and we will show use cases 2. Learn how to how to interact properly with synthetic personas to extract the most accurate data. 3. How to start with the right setup, how to choose the right persona and how to practically use it.

Most market research excludes people with disabilities, creating biased data, missed insights, and product risk. This session shares four principles for more inclusive research: treat disability as a lens, segment by access needs, include disabled people by default, and report findings with precision and care. Key Takeaways: 1. Disability is a research lens, not a single market segment. 2. Segment by access needs, not diagnostic labels. 3. Inclusive research reduces bias and improves decisions.

While the focus of genAI in the past few years has been in efficiencies 'behind-the-scenes' for researchers, there are many opportunities to expand AI to the consumer/respondent research experience. AI unlocks capabilities not possible before - generating high-quality stimuli at scale and speed. These capabilities greatly improve respondent experience, data quality, and validity. Key Takeaways: 1. Inspire ways to leverage AI to improve respondent experience 2. Leverage AI to narrow the say-do gap 3. AI can be tools for consumers to express/generate their needs and preferences

The best consumer insight has always come from real people, not the profiles we build around them. But knowing what people think only matters if you find out in time to act. Sam Killip and Rob Gaige explore how Reddit stays close to humans at scale, how Attest helps bridge the gap between consumers on paper and how they behave, and how to build an insight program that keeps people at the center. Key Takeaways: 1. Why real human behavior keeps outrunning our models of it 2. How Reddit stays close to its communities beyond demographics 3. What it looks like to put people, not proxies, at the heart of insight

How do insights teams credibly research climate and sustainability without measuring their own carbon footprint? Learn a practical framework for auditing research emissions, reducing carbon 50-80% without sacrificing quality, and offsetting unavoidable impact. Includes 15-minute audit tool, strategic reduction roadmap, and high-quality offset guidance—with cumulative impact analysis. Key Takeaways: 1. Measurement reveals priorities: office presence and commuting drive 40-60% of emissions. 2. Cut emissions 50-80% by shifting exploratory work remote while preserving in-person research depth. 3. Use high-quality offsets to address unavoidable emissions and achieve carbon neutrality.

Andrew Embry, Eli Lilly's leader of Global Insights Innovation Capabilities and AI initiatives, shares his thoughts about audacity, creativity and inventing the future of a global insights practice, in a highly regulated industry.  We will hear, in his own words, what it takes and who will shape the future of insights. Key Takeaways: 1. Andrew’s unique approach to empowering his teams so they are geared up to succeed. 2. Saying yes to bold insight and analytics goals when other voices (and even the data itself) says no. 3. Concrete examples to illustrate and inspire from one practitioner's POV on achieving the possible.

Synthetic research is one of the most consequential shifts in market research, and one of the most misunderstood. Not all methods are equal, and using the wrong one carries real risk. This session maps the landscape, shows where synthetic personas fit, shares guardrails to use them with confidence, and offers a look at where the category is heading, including self-serve flows in NewtonX Hub. Key Takaways:  1. Four types of synthetic research, best uses, and limitations for each 2. How Synthetic Personas fit into the synthetic research landscape and alongside primary research 3. The guardrails needed to build a Synthetic Persona you can trust

Traditional research can't keep pace with fast-moving timelines. Discover how Radius Tech closed the gap between research and decision-making for a global technology company by building AI synthetic personas from real data, validating against live survey results, then putting them to work evaluating 10+ concepts, all in a fraction of the time. Key Takeaways: 1. Understand how synthetic personas can match real survey accuracy without the wait. 2. Explore how 10+ concepts were tested in days and qualitative insights were delivered in hours. 3. Gain insight into how early testing helps avoid costly, late-stage pivots.

Segmentation doesn't usually fail in the research - it fails in the activation. In this session, I'll introduce my FAR Framework (Familiar, Applicable, Real) - a practical approach to turning segmentation from a one time deliverable into a scalable, decision-ready asset. You'll learn how to drive adoption across teams, systems and everyday business decisions. Key Takeaways:  1. Familiar : Socialize segmentation so it becomes shared language across the organization 2. Applicable : Turn segments into decision-ready guidance for every stakeholder 3. Real : Embed segmentation into systems and workflows to drive everyday decisions

A field report on building an AI-native research function from scratch: hiring curious, pragmatic minds, an operating model for scale and democratization, an AI-ready repository, audits and guardrails optimizing researcher attention. It reinvents the function and its leadership and it unlocks long priced-out methods, richer human insight, positioning researchers irrevocably as thought partners. Key Takeaways: 1. AI-native is structural: who you hire, your operations, and a rethought role for research 2. An AI-ready repository turns your archive into a product that answers questions in minutes. 3. The payoff: long priced-out methods come back, and researchers become thought partners in product.

Consumer behavior is the output. Culture is the operating system. This session explores the invisible forces that shape our decisions every day and how trends reveal deeper shifts already underway. By understanding behavior through a cultural lens, organizations can spot change earlier, uncover opportunities others miss, and anticipate what’s next before it becomes obvious. Key Takeaways: 1. Consumer behavior is visible. The forces shaping it are not. 2. Trends are clues, not conclusions. 3. The advantage goes to those who can spot cultural shifts—and decode their meaning—early.

Researchers have always known that social videos & images hold valuable human stories. Afterall, every post is the kind of short, unvarnished interview we love. But until recently, we lacked the tools to effectively decode emotions & nuanced behaviors at scale. Learn how leading insights teams use vision AI to uncover emerging behaviors, spot trends early, & complement traditional insights. Key Takeaways:  1. Move beyond text-only social “listening” to solve complex insights challenges 2. Identify meaningful category, culture, and audience signals before they become mainstream trends 3. Diagnose and track the modern consumer journey as it weaves through social media

Most enterprise AI projects end up trapped in pilot purgatory. Turning bold concepts into scalable ROI demands a repeatable innovation engine. This talk unpacks a practical model for structuring an internal incubator, exposing why sustainable machine learning success actually depends on elevating your organization's core data management practices. Key Takeaways: 1. A 5-stage blueprint to transform isolated AI pilots into a repeatable ROI engine 2. How strengthening your data management practices unlocks long-term AI performance 3. Strategies to target high-impact business pain points instead of chasing a check mark on AI

Gone are the days of sequential processes skipping between platforms. Parallel workflows, integrated steps, and AI and agentic enhancements to the tools you use daily are here. Accelerate insights, eliminate inefficiencies, and redefine your excellence across the research process with Research HX, built on decades of research experience and enhanced with agents and intelligent automation. Key Takeaways: 1. Discover what working with Research HX can do to your workflow 2. Explore the power of automation and integrated research steps 3. See how research agents can enhance your expertise

While the industry races to simulate consumers with synthetic data, Julie Davitz made the opposite bet: AI that captures what real humans think, feel, and do in the 60 seconds after content ends — when motivation peaks and evaporates. The proof: 155,000+ documented behaviors at 10x industry norms. Three questions, one unclaimed moment, and the end of the say–do gap. Key Takeaways: 1. Three questions before any campaign: What do you want? How will you get there? How will you know? 2. AI's best use in insights is activating real humans, not simulating them & behavior is the insight 3. The 60 seconds after content ends converts motivation into measurable action at 10x industry norms

This session introduces a rigorous mixed-method approach that pairs analysis of existing surveillance footage with in-depth qualitative interviews. Drawing on urban transit systems and retail environments, we'll show how connecting observed behavior with human motivation closes the say-do gap and reveals friction points, unmet needs, and the full customer journey. Key Takeaways: 1. Learn a proven approach for closing the say–do gap with behavioral evidence. 2. Connect behavioral observation with customer motivations and decision-making. 3. Leave with a practical framework that can turn existing video data into strategic customer insight.

What can product builders learn from novelists? More than you'd expect. Drawing on 450+ author interviews, this talk maps the creative process to product development — covering MVP thinking, audience discovery, iteration, and the discipline of shipping. You'll leave with practical lessons on navigating uncertainty, killing your darlings, and building something people actually want to finish. Key Takeaways:  1. Start before you feel ready; momentum beats permission. 2. The messy middle is where the real product takes shape. 3. Launch is the starting line, not the finish line.

AI has made data abundant and accessible to everyone. But data isn't insight. This talk explores the researcher's evolving role in an AI-enabled world; taking data and applying concepts from fields like anthropology, psychology, and behavioral economics to move beyond 'what happened' to 'what does this actually mean for us?' When everyone has access to data, true insights are what you do with it. Key Takeaways: 1. AI gives everyone data access, insight still requires human judgment and context 2. Shift from 'what happened' to 'what does this mean for us' to stay indispensable 3. AI tools are only as good as what you use them for

Two of three people who start a survey get terminated, and the pay is often around $2.50 an hour. Most people quit. Yet many who stay are exactly who we need. With new participant data (n=300) and firsthand fraud investigation, we'll map who really answers surveys, from the genuinely engaged to the professional fraudster, and one practical move for every role in the chain to expand the pool. Key Takeaways: 1. Panels aren't the population: they're the survivors of a journey most people abandon. 2. The typologies of today's survey takers: who's genuinely engaged, who adapts, who fakes it. 3. One practical move each for buyers, suppliers, and researchers, to expand the pool together.

Your frontline holds the most current intelligence on your market, competitors, and customers. Most organizations never tap into this source of insights. This session shows how AI-driven interviews turn internal knowledge into a continuous market signal that updates faster than any research cycle at a fraction of the cost. Looking to maximize budget and still find new insight, join us. Key Takeaways: 1. Why your frontline is your most underutilized intelligence source 2. How internal AI interviews remove bias, scale across the org, and compound over time 3. How to build a living market model without spending hundreds of thousands on external research