A Dive into Tech, Robotics, and AI in the Research Industry

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In Episode 32, we delve into a wide array of topics. From updates on recent events and product launches to the evolving landscape of tech and robotics in the research industry. We emphasized the increasing importance of data and consulting skills, and explored the potential impact of AI and robotics across various sectors. Amidst the advancements, we raised concerns about the swift implementation of AI, highlighting the need for a cautious approach.

They also touched upon the challenges of regulating AI technologies and pondered the role of government oversight in shaping AI development. This episode provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of the research industry and the potential influence of emerging technologies, underscoring the need for a balanced approach to innovation and responsible adoption, with a particular focus on data privacy and consumer perception.

Use code EXCHANGE to get a 20% discount on your general admission IIEX tickets!

IIEX North America 

IIEX Europe 

IIEX LATAM 

Many thanks to our producer, Karley Dartouzos. 

Transcript

Lenny Murphy: All right. And we are live. Oh, happy Friday. Happy Friday to everyone who's watching and happy Friday, Natalie.

Natalie Pusch: Happy Friday, Lenny. And hello everybody. For those who don't know me, I am Natalie push. I am a senior content producer with Greenbook. I am stepping in for Karen Lynch this week because she is over at IIEX Asia pack, um, in Bangkok. So. Apparently it was a very good event this year. Super excited about that. I know our title sponsor was a huge hit. So thank you so much to them for stepping in. This year I know that we had, oh my gosh, sorry. Bolt Insights as our title sponsor. So thank you again, Bolt. So apologies for that. Took a second. It's a Friday morning. And early for you. I know. It's my first thing in the morning. Haven't had my coffee. It's currently right on my side. Well, Lenny, speaking of our IIEX events, I know we have some other ones coming up.

Lenny Murphy: We do. Thank you, Karley, for pulling that up. Yep. But North America is just around the corner. So that's the big one, which for all of us who don't know, when Natalie talks about being content coordinator, she IIEX is a huge, huge part of what she's doing, as well as the podcast, et cetera, et cetera. So Karley, since you're really close to the content IIEX, any sneak peeks you can give us? How's North America shaping up?

Natalie Pusch: North America is going to be a good one. We're going to have lots of brands on the agenda, so super excited about that. This is my personal favorite event. Obviously, it's our biggest, so lots of good stuff is coming in that pipeline. Have Bose who will be joining us on stage. I'm very excited about that. Other than that, you'll have to definitely take a peek at our website and check out all the speakers that we have lined up. It'll be a great event. So yeah, I also wanted to dive into some other recent content that we've been seeing. I know Karen just participated in the 10K Humans panel where they were talking about paid for your say. So obviously that's come up on the exchange before but we just wanted to highlight that because that was some really good content Yeah, yeah the Karley put the link in for carry hacked posted that shout out to carry and

Lenny Murphy: take a humans for leading on and This expose and it really is and there's folks that they've registered for that that program they are going deep and You know, it's it's like a project Veritas or whatever kind of Sting operation in trying to figure this out and dive in it's it's pretty great and like to do the bucket series they're releasing snippets of this content that Karen was in for over the course of the next few weeks. So check it out for sure. Uh, yeah. Data privacy and quality. Uh, it's just an issue. So yeah. All right. What next?

Natalie Pusch: Should we dive into some new products in the, in the field that we've been seeing lately?

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, lots of interesting things this week. A couple of things of note, our friends at Remesh launched their new external data import capability. So I think that's just really indicative of the trend to synthesize information. Not only using the core capabilities in the platform while conducting research in that platform, but now being able to leverage those tools which are fundamentally AI tools to analyze other data and synthesize it in. It's a great, big step for many companies who are doing that and congrats to Remesh. That definitely jumped out. Our friends at Disqus have a new AI and multi-country feature. What's interesting is where we're seeing a lot of this development is in qualitative platforms. Remesh is qualitative at scale. Disqus is an online focus group with more capabilities. So we're just seeing lots of kinds of low-hanging fruit integration of new tools within Qualitative. And that's two that popped out this week. So that's Fantastic. One thing to discuss also, off-platform research capabilities include seamless upload of video files, which, you know, that's what they do. So, again, it's this external data to be able to put in. So, really cool stuff that's happening there. And then, kind of a broader scope, one thing that jumped out was our friends at Shapiro and Raj. With their AI tech practice. So expect to see a heck of a lot more of that. Superior Entourage is a full service agency with technology underpinnings and they are just doing a lot to leverage these tools and increase speed to insight and efficiency and cost within the full service consulting. Paradigm so I think that's just really cool that they're doing that as well and brought in somebody from With a tech background from Amazon Microsoft Google and Salesforce So that's really interesting that Scott Swigert to lead that practice so this is you know, we're seeing that a pulling people from external outside of research with this capability and helping to inform where things go from here. So yeah, interesting stuff with new products that are being launched.

Natalie Pusch: Yeah, I think other than that, we've also seen some really interesting capital deals this week. So we definitely wanted to touch on that. Lenny, do you want to start out with Accenture?

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, well, Accenture's made another acquisition that plays into the research space. So it's their second deal in two weeks, I think. They bought a MarTech firm, the Lumiere, out of Melbourne. It certainly seems like Accenture, a big consulting company, is accelerating their data acquisitions and their data utility acquisitions to help drive greater impact on their higher-end consulting. We've seen this same basic strategy in play for a while. McKinsey early on did that with Periscope. So I've often thought that we would eventually see more and more of the big consulting companies, Deloitte, Accenture, PwC, et cetera, et cetera. You know, Bain making more acquisitions in the research space. I think we're seeing that play out.

Natalie Pusch: I think it's interesting, too. I mean, the more conversations I've been having across the industry with a lot of different people, particularly with the rise of A.I., you know, as we get into a more data driven economy, thinking about the ways in which researchers' roles will change. And I think so many people are leaning into that consultant practice and what that will look like for researchers. So really, I think it will be important to lean into that, acquire that as a skill as a researcher, and make sure that that's something that you can deliver as a company moving forward.

Lenny Murphy: 100% agree. You know, I'm involved with several conversations with private equity companies on the future of the industry. And, you know, fundamentally, it is, you know, there's data, and there's data activation, right? The research industry is well positioned to play in that, that collecting data, using data piece. Consultancies are primarily focused on, all right, now what the hell do we do with it, right? Once we understand it. So yeah, I agree. I think that's a rapidly forming world that we're viewing right now, which isn't that different from what we've seen with kind of the bifurcation of service versus tech. But I think there's a strategic overlay that's appearing. And to your point, that's important skill sets.

Natalie Pusch: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, often there are kinds of barriers drawn in, this might be a little bit of a controversial opinion, but barriers in the inside space, in my opinion, don't necessarily need to be there. I think, you know, it is a pretty widespread industry and people like to categorize and compartmentalize a lot of the different areas within the space. So I think this kind of consulting can give a wider overview of the industry.

Lenny Murphy: Well, so interesting thing about that, right? Categorizing the industry, it's what we do at Green Book, right? Our taxonomy. But I guess I can talk about this a little bit. The interesting trend over the last few months, we have seen more companies I would consider to be marketing and consulting agencies coming into Green Book. That is not something that there were outliers occasionally, but there's enough now that I would call it a trend. So, and I think that's, it's very indicative of that shift that you're talking about and, and yeah, everything else. We may be looking at where we have to restructure the way we think about things, that there is data and then there's all the methodologies of how to use or how to collect the data. And then again, there's kind of this activation, which is this broader piece, which will still be focused on business issues, but it may become a much more simplified version of the way, kind of the taxonomy that we've been using within the directory.

Natalie Pusch: Well, and I think an interesting, you know, kind of categorization to the extent that I'm talking about it also is, you know, that line that exists between the UX user research space and research as a whole. Because I think people think of it as such a different category, which I think is so interesting because it is predominantly, you know, looking at consumer, customer insights. Um, but just in a little bit different tech lens.

Lenny Murphy: So, um, well, so I'll give a little, a little sneak peek. This will be coming soon in the latest grit, uh, that will be out, uh, here next month or so. The, uh, we clearly, clearly see within the buyer side data, uh, and then we'll, we'll get into the details at the moment, but, um, the the fragmentation of who is a research buyer, it is 100% apparent that that is no longer centralized in the market research organization. So to your point, right, usability, product, brand, CX, yada, yada, there's this big universe of emerging research users and buyers that are aligned more towards specific business issues. But they damn sure are buying, you know, research solutions just with this one, you know, the one kind of contextual framework that they use and thinking about that. And these barriers that we see are really kind of imaginary. So it's more just about use cases, not about organizational dividers.

Natalie Pusch: Yeah, absolutely. Well, speaking of tech, Lenny, should we dive into the hot topic of almost every week?

Lenny Murphy: Well, there's a couple more pieces here. The deal did catch my eye. It's a segue, right? The robotic startup figure raised $675 million from Microsoft, NVIDIA, and OpenAI. So as we get into the two-letter topic here in a few minutes, We are already starting to see this emergence of, okay, now let's talk about robots. And these are not just the robots that are working in warehouses. I mean, these are full-on humanoid robots that are being designed to do many, many things. So the sci-fi world, I mean, here we are and follow the money, follow that much money going into a startup that is building robots means that they absolutely see that there is going to be a market for these AI-driven, AI-powered, humanoid-like robots. And get ready, guys. That's coming. So that was a deal that definitely jumped out. A couple more just real quick on that, too. And it's related. Tumblr is doing a deal with OpenAI mid-journey for training data. Now, Tumblr is a social media platform, but their parent company also owns WordPress. So kind of keep that in mind, that there's now lots of deals happening for acquiring content for AI training sets, and that was a big one. And other Robotic AI agents, so a little different, may not be physical robots, but kind of virtual agent avatars, if you will. Let's see, a trillion dollar market as AI agents replace 300 million jobs, according to a 2023 Goldman Sachs report. And lots of money flowing into that. So into that piece of it as well.

Natalie Pusch: So I think, interestingly, too, though, a lot of that is really focused on the manual labor side, if I'm not mistaken, I think what I saw in the article.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. Yeah. Customer service agents. I'm not just manual. Warehouse. Retail. Retail. Absolutely. Our friend Kyle Nell from Lowe's. I mean, Lowe's had robotic agents out in the aisle years ago. So yes, all of those things.

Natalie Pusch: A quick shout out to Kyle Nell as well, because he recently joined us on the podcast. So make sure to check out that episode.

Lenny Murphy: Is that live yet? I wasn't sure.

Natalie Pusch: I'm losing a little bit of track, but if it's not live yet, I promise it will be soon.

Lenny Murphy: Okay. All right. Um, yeah, so just, it's just the next evolution of all these things, right? None of this should be a big surprise. Um, all right. And then what do we want to get into the, the, the other stuff, the kind of the, the, the dark side can money.

Natalie Pusch: You know, this week, obviously we've seen a lot of different things happening with AI, one of which is ongoing issues with Google and everything that's been happening with Gemini. But we've also seen a few other things going on. So should we just dive in?

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about it. So there's an article on Yahoo. Karley on the inside the crisis at Google Pro who really was paying attention to this launch of Gemini. This wasn't just a Kind of a minor thing. It was a big damn deal, you know, it affected their stock. There's been calls for the CEO to resign. It was a pretty big screw-up in a very public way. I And set all that aside, right, there's two pieces in my mind, at least, that sometimes we move too fast. And there's certainly an argument to be made to kind of go through and figure out How did this happen? And heads will roll because that's what happens, right? Mistakes were made, and that's just the way that's going to be. But I still remain very optimistic that, not optimistic. I'm happy that it happened, not because it needed to happen with somebody for us to realize. Let's slow down and these tools are not necessarily fully baked yet. We are still so early in this process and we need to find fit for purpose and it'll get there. And if a company with the resources and the prestige of Google could screw up, we need to pay attention right across the board because We these are black box solutions to an extent. Uh, and we needed to make sure we can see what's happening and validate the results. So you don't wind up with, you know, African American Nazis in your, uh, in your image generator.

Natalie Pusch: So, uh, anyway, I think, you know, another instance in which we've seen it's not fully baked is this week, you know, tax season is upon us. So, um, uh, each and our block and turbo tax. Have integrated AI, and it's giving people some pretty bad advice for their taxes. You know, Lenny and I were talking just before getting on this call. And I think an instance in which I've even seen it giving me bad results is, you know, I don't know if anybody's watching the show Shogun. It's very good, by the way, based on the books. Um, but anyhow, I was asking AI just to see when the next episode was coming out and it gave me the wrong date. And so then I, you know, fact checked with Google and I think that's just another example of, we can't be leaning into these, you know, in, in the entirety right now, I think there's still a lot to go. So we just got to be patient and, um, kind of Ease into it so to speak.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, well and on the tax front that jumped out at me because here's a little known fact from many many years ago, uh, I was in that business and I was a uh district manager for uh h&r block and then a regional manager for Uh for jackson hewitt. So I mean this is this back in the mid 90s So a very long time ago like before you were born Natalie So, and now I really feel old, but it's a complex business. It's serious because. Even using things like TurboTax, and I do my own taxes, if you screw up, the IRS doesn't come back and say, oh, it's okay because you used a software and the software screwed up. Nope, you're on the hook for the mistake regardless of how it was done. So yeah, I think it's another great example to realize we need to validate these things.

Natalie Pusch: Yeah, absolutely.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. One other thing is that it is kind of a drama. The open AI, you know, Elon Musk used open AI. And for those who don't know, he was one of the early founders. He contributed to open AI as a nonprofit to drive and help the development of AI, right? The lawsuit was, you know, you shouldn't have ever become a for-profit business. OpenAI is pushing back, saying, well, you knew we were, so, you know, drop your lawsuit.

Natalie Pusch: Well, Lenny, you see the drama, too, with, you know, all of the emails that are now coming to light from Elon.

Lenny Murphy: Yes. Yes. Saw that. There was a tweet that was doing a good job of kind of putting all that together. I think the interesting question there is, when we, OpenAI, was originally set to be a self-regulating body for the industry, I think, right? And didn't necessarily work the way that it was planned. And that if there is no...

Natalie Pusch: regulation?

Lenny Murphy: Yes, that's not exactly what I'm trying to go for. Somehow, when you can do cool stuff, you just tend to do it. And sometimes there needs to be an adult in the room to say, probably shouldn't do that. Maybe we should slow down a little bit. Don't touch the hot stove. And with these technologies, that's lacking. And we see that in other areas as well. And we like to think that companies will self-regulate on those things, and many do. I am by no means trying to impugn anyone here. Most companies realize, yeah, just because we can clone a mammoth, maybe we shouldn't, type of thing, right? They've learned the right lesson from Jurassic Park. But still, there needs to be some with all these new technologies emerging, there does need to be some structure to help make sure we don't get ahead of ourselves. And the examples we just threw out of kind of errors and problems happening, I think is indicative of that, that we do need that. OpenAI was going to be that. It is not. And we should find some other solution. So it doesn't implode, uh, or cause, you know, larger problems for users and for the world, uh, as we kind of rush for adoption on this.

Natalie Pusch: Right. Yeah. I think it will be interesting to see even, you know, how government regulation plays into that as we move forward. Um, obviously I don't think we have one uniform opinion on how that should be, um, approached, but I think, um, there will be a lot of development in that space for sure.

Lenny Murphy: So what is that? Okay. Now I'm going to, uh, play the age card here too. Obviously for me, I'm a lot older than Natalie. Um, so now in your generation, you guys are digital natives, right? I mean, you've, you just have been raised in a very different environment. Um, is there a view, uh, that is around that, So here's my hypothesis. People like me, Gen X, we're a little skeptical. Like, whoa, wait a minute. We've seen the Terminator. We were raised with these technologies or with these ideas that this could all be bad. So we're just a little skeptical and cautious. You've been raised with these as embedded into every aspect of your life or your whole life. Does it raise the same concerns?

Natalie Pusch: generation So I will say I think as far as my age goes it is a little bit more unique in that I'm a little bit of that cusper You know, I remember when the first ipod came out all the I've seen a lot of development over my life in technology So it's not like I was an ipad kid, you know um so with that being said I think People, I think, are still apprehensive, but they're willing to adopt at a faster pace. And I think, you know, similar to, and I've seen mixed opinions on this, but, you know, as far as climate change or development of technology, whether that be data privacy online, I think there are mixed opinions as to how much a government should step in and kind of be you know, oversight into these things. I would say by and large, in my opinion, that there needs to be some oversight in lots of these policies that are going forward. I think, you know, even visiting the EU, you know, you can see, and it's changed a little bit, but in the past few years, but you know, even just clicking on what cookies you want to allow in the EU, the policies have been much different over the years as they have been in the States. So, um, I do think it's interesting. I don't necessarily have a formal opinion on, you know, how I think they should approach the AI topic, but I think there is a lot that they need to kind of look into and think about, you know, should there be any regulation here?

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. Well, that's probably a good little segue for our last few pieces. There was an article when you saw me looking up, and thank you for sharing that perspective. Then, I don't see the link, Karley, maybe you can find it in the big mess of our exchange links. But there was an article on people's, consumers' perception of AI in advertising. And particularly, you know, their openness to, to fully AI-created ads versus not. I think it's just another aspect. When we're talking about adoption, there's our personal adoption, but then there's also the companies around us that we engage with and how they're adopting it and what impact that may have. So Karley, if we can find that link, and let's pop that in. It's just a really interesting article. And there were a few more that were related to data. You brought up data privacy and several issues around LiveRamp data now being challenged in the EU, which many of us use to make the connective tissue between research and marketing. Continues to be a challenge another article on the Dunhamby partnering to deliver, you know more kind of door-to-door Individualized level Data and all of this just feeds into the member AI for our listeners AI is just a way to leverage data in a new way effectively so goes in my mind, I brought all that up, because to your point, there is still a lot of points of caution that we need to embrace from a regulatory standpoint, you know, adoption, personal comfort, data privacy, data quality, The we can't duck out on testing the tools and utilizing the tools and moving forward But I think we have to be cautious Across the board. So does that make sense?

Natalie Pusch: Yeah, I think I'm on board Lenny.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah All right, cool. You know that I have not. No one has agreed with me yet today on anything, Natalie. So I appreciate that. That's the nicest thing that's happened to me all day.

Natalie Pusch: Always here for you, Lenny.

Lenny Murphy: Listen, as you really got to know, I mean, Nat, especially since she manages all the podcasts with that piece of things, she cracks the whip on me all of the time. So, today is International Women's Day. And so You and Karley, Karen, so many people in our team, the women who keep me straight from a business standpoint. And big shout out to my wife, Danielle, who has put up with me in every other way for almost 30 years. My should-be sainted wife, as I talk about her, because she should be. Anyway, and all women.

Natalie Pusch: We have a lot of women on the Green Book team, so big shout out to all of them. Thank you also to Karley, who helps with the exchange, puts out all the links, and makes sure that all of this runs smoothly. So yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, absolutely. All right. I guess that puts us right at times. So I think we got through just about Everything, there were a couple interesting articles. Karley, let's do the articles we didn't touch on, ones from Dimitri and UX. Let's include those in the links, even though we get a chance to talk about them, but it's really interesting feedback around AI and research. So let's add those in. And anything else, Natalie?

 

Natalie Pusch: No, thanks for letting me step in while Karen’s out. Hope you all enjoyed it.

Lenny Murphy: So yeah, absolutely. No, now, uh, now you're probably going to get subjected to this again.

Natalie Pusch: So I don't know about that. One more quick side note to anybody who might be watching right now, we do have a tech showcase going on today. You'll also see me there. So make sure to check it out.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. How can I forget that? Alright, well, let's let's kill this and move on so you can go attend the tech showcase.

Natalie Pusch: Yeah, absolutely. Alright, thanks everybody.

Multiple Speakers: Bye bye.