The AI Shift No One Saw Coming: From Software to Services

Check out the full episode below! Enjoy The Exchange? Don't forget to tune in live Friday at 12 pm EST on the Greenbook LinkedIn and Youtube Channel!

The research and CX industry is at a crossroads. Traditional platforms are struggling under debt while AI deployment is reshaping how enterprises buy and use analytics tools. This episode explores what happens when private equity leverage meets the need for transformational AI investment, why major vendors are hiring armies of engineers instead of just selling software, and how market research is evolving from static reports to always-on data infrastructure.

Plus: the case for AI-moderated interviews, and why your insights might soon find you in Slack rather than waiting in a dashboard you never open.

Many thanks to our producer, Karley Dartouzos. 

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Transcript

Lenny Murphy: All right, we're live. We were just reminiscing, folks, on the joys of skating rinks in the mid-'80s.

Karen Lynch: Skating rinks, and how neither of us were disco people. But when I was at Skate City, where were you? You were at what skating rink? Skateland.

Lenny Murphy: Skateland.

Karen Lynch: Even if you weren't disco people, we absolutely had to skate to disco at our skating rinks.

Karen Lynch: I wasn't a skater. I loved it.

Lenny Murphy: I was not a skater. Text for this for the audience next week. Karen has a lot of stuff going on and rightfully so with her her daughter and all that good stuff, so the Sorry, I didn't steal your thunder but Sarah Sneddon is going to Guest host next week and Sarah's awesome and Sarah and I have a unique history that I won't give away right now but it does have to do with skating rinks in the mid 80s and we'll skating rings in the mid 80s. Yes.

Karen Lynch: And we will touch on that next week. Um, I wish we had music because you could start off with good times, which was like, I feel like every time I skated, it was always good times at that point.

Lenny Murphy: It was a thriller. It was a thriller and, uh, and jump by Van Halen.

Karen Lynch: I mean, that was just such a classic. If you, if you are, if you were, um, you know, a teen in the eighties and totally, you know, your parents would drop you off. Do that.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, on Friday night. Yes, that's where you met.

Karen Lynch: It was roller skating.

Lenny Murphy: Yes, like sixth, seventh, eighth grade, so that middle school arena, you went to the skating rink.

Karen Lynch: And your parents dropped you off. Then as you get a little bit older, like in high school, they would still drop you off, but you wouldn't necessarily stay there. That was well, yeah.

Lenny Murphy: And that was like, you don't want to know where I was. But at that point, it was for me, it was now I'm going to the mall and that was where you met. So anyway, we reminisce about Georgia Gen X.

Karen Lynch: Well, I will not be here because next week my daughter is graduating from college. I know my baby is graduating from college. It's an out of state graduation and they are not very kind to out of state residents because it's all happening during the week. Um, and since it's a, you know, a large university, uh, down at university of Maryland, um, they like the the you know the fill the football stadium graduation one day and then her smaller school where she will walk the next day so it's you know it's like Wednesday and Thursday like there's no way to it's practically the whole week so I won't be around um yeah anyway but our last child like again the the freedom that I will feel on Friday morning when my last child is done with college and we will have put three children through college it'll be like Is it is it freedom or is it the you know, I still have because

Lenny Murphy: Financial freedom perhaps I'm still paying for Aaron's Aaron's master's degree from Georgia Tech, but the Well, you know, I still have three yeah, I have three teenagers now, yes, which I would say by the way This is during the dad mom and dad stuff for a minute Marilyn my 16 year old daughter Starts her first job on Monday. 

Karen Lynch: That's so and but Gianna is moving on to a PhD. Program right from her undergrad to a Ph.D. Program that is fully funded. So we are incredibly proud, but that one is all her. It's fully funded, which is very unusual, and we're extremely proud of her. So that is awesome. So, yeah, it is. It is really awesome. We couldn't be, we couldn't have more, much, much, much to celebrate. She's, you know, phenomenal. So, yeah. So, yeah, it's a very celebratory week. She will be there with not only a gazillion chords, but medals. She won a Dean's Scholar medal, and she's extraordinary.

Lenny Murphy: So audience, here's the human element, right? We are parents and family first. That is a principle, a cultural principle, that we all agree on, well at least we absolutely 100% agree on, and the Green Book is a core component. And there's a lot of kids graduating right now in the Green Book family. The Lukasz's son's have graduated and yeah all right, but why don't we work right. It does and so we'll warn you right? So we've been, we haven't heard any complaints about our almost hour-long shows, but we, we took a real look this week of like, okay, we need a different process because the volume is not decreasing. So... And we're figuring out how we can make sure that you're for this show that we are cutting. We're just getting to the most relevant stuff and that's probably a good thing to say. Yeah, we are not gonna list every single thing that's what we were doing.

Karen Lynch: It was getting out of here. We're trying to cover everything. We can't know and Yeah. So feedback, The Exchange at greenbook.org. If you have something to say about it, if you're like, no, I need you to run through all the product feature launches or whatever, like you gotta let us know. Otherwise we're going to just keep kind of trusting our intuition on this one.

Lenny Murphy: Yes. If that's what you want us to do, that's fine. Um, we are working on another channel to be able to see all of that. Um, and we can get, you know, in that later, but the, uh, or another method, but for this, uh, we are, we are, we fell down to the stuff that either we think is the most important or examples from a product release standpoint that seem to exemplify a trend in products versus everybody. So it's a slightly different approach, and it should allow us to stay within roughly 30 minutes.

Karen Lynch: So let's see. Yeah, yeah. And there's on YouTube my husband being sassy, Lenny teeing up the spin three hour Wednesdays or one hour Mondays.

Lenny Murphy: Maybe Tim, I hadn't thought about that.

Karen Lynch: You know, again, just shows me he's tuned in. So let's not talk about him.

Lenny Murphy: Okay. All right. Although I do often joke like for the podcast, like one day, one day, there's going to be somebody that we're like, screw it, this is going to be a three hour conversation. We haven't found that yet.

Karen Lynch: But one day we'll get there. Yeah. All right. Actually, you know what? You and I should have a marathon one day. We should just be like, you know what? Let's just see how long you and I could talk just for fun and see what happens. That would be interesting. No. Maybe we don't. Maybe just maybe. Start one morning at 9 AM. See where we go. See how well we get along by the end of the day.

Lenny Murphy: I can't believe he said that.

Karen Lynch: Let's get into it. Yeah. 1130 late night with AI and Lenny and Karen. Yes. All right.

Lenny Murphy: So what was useful this week was there wasn't nearly as much funding news, but there was, uh, there was some bad news and let's talk about it. Right. And that is a medallion. Um, so I don't know about total transparency. I, I, I have filed for bankruptcy, um, both from business and a personal standpoint, and that is a terrible, awful thing, but it also, a fresh start is not always a bad thing. And we've seen other companies in the space that have done that, Dynato, restructured.

Karen Lynch: That's where we're. Yeah, explain what happened here, because I don't know that everyone tracks Medallion, what's going on.

Lenny Murphy: So Medallion was bought by Tama Bravo, a private equity group, a couple of years ago. And unfortunately, sometimes how private equity can do these things is via debt. And so they had $2.8 billion in debt, and they just couldn't service it. So their debt service was $300 million.

Karen Lynch: Their revenue was $200 million.

Lenny Murphy: So there's about $5.1 billion in equity that is being done. So they were bought for $6.4 billion. Medaya was bought for $6.4 billion. They haven't, that didn't work. And, uh, but I, I think it's really interesting that there's a PE component of this because the PE model often is around loading up debt and leverage and you're just kind of squeezing out equity. Um, there's, uh, so the PE model is not designed for transformation. It's designed for, uh, for revenue optimization. And Medallia's a platform, and along came AI. And I think that's, so there's two lessons in this for me, that I think hopefully our listeners recognize. A lot of like, this does not mean Medallia's a bad business. I had Medallia as a client for a while, a couple years ago. They're smart people, they build some good stuff. But when PE comes in, you just keep doing what you're doing, right? So you want to optimize what you've built. Is not into investing for growth and change. And in this scenario, Medallia, it was a good bet when they were bought. No debate. The world changed. But because they were already saddled with this debt, they couldn't invest to transform. And that eventually caught up with them. And that's a story that we're going to see more of

Karen Lynch: Well, what's interesting is, so yes, I'm going to yes end this, is, you know, I put this together with, you know, what happened with Qualtrics a couple of weeks ago, and knowing both of them playing in the CX space and highly competitive in the CX space. I have a good friend who goes to both the Qualtrics event and the Medallia event. And knowing, you know, what's happening just in the CX software space in general, And thinking about, you know, with AI and with the genetic AI in particular, you know, the goal for these companies or the race that they're in is not just, you know, more, more surveys or more CX work or more clients, even it's, it's really if it's not, if it's not turning into these triggers that is going to save you, save you those customers, if it's not triggering an action that is going to solve the customer problem that maybe is identified, then you're not helping the business.

Lenny Murphy: Right.

Karen Lynch: So like the survey, the customer experience work in and of itself is not what's helpful anymore. Like it's got to be more. It's got to be the customer improvement. You know, it's got to go to that next level. So it's really part of this race that they are in this agentic race. That's what they're in right now, if they are in the arms, the agentic AI arms race.

Lenny Murphy: I was actually on the phone with Greg Archibald, Gen 2, right before this call. We were talking about language. I was like, my language has changed an awful lot in the last six months. The lexicon, right? Because, weird. Workflow, you know, um, infrastructure stacks, all of them, and that's inherently the challenge for any of the platform companies.

Karen Lynch: Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Um, if they were the platform model of the platform, clients would come to you because you're the best game in town and you exist as a discrete solution. I changed that to your point.

Karen Lynch: Cause that's what the workflow is.

Lenny Murphy: How do you connect insights to activation and all of those things? And these companies have to fit now within a workflow, not a discrete one. I'm going from here to there, to there, to there, doing these different functions, these tasks. Streamlines all those tasks. And that's a real transformational challenge, especially from even an internal technology investment for these companies that have had these massive private equity bets. We could rattle off, you know, there's a ton of companies that are likely facing many of the same challenges in thinking through how they reposition the business to fit into a different world where they are not a, where they must integrate into a broader workflow, they don't own it all. And that changes the business model, It changes their pricing models. It changes so many things. Um, so, but to, back to the good, you know, hopefully Medallia, they'll go through this. They're not going to go away. It's not like they're gonna be liquidated or anything. Um, they'll get a fresh start. Uh, and, and hopefully have, you know, some, uh, some folks that are helping them to, to now retrench and, and, uh, reposition themselves. But it was definitely a big lesson. That's a big damn number. Right. I mean that it's a multi-billion dollar loss for their creditors. Yeah, you know So, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that was the funding news kind of right at least.

Karen Lynch: Yeah Yeah, how the money news, you know, we're always talking about the money. That's our money.

Lenny Murphy: Follow the money, that I mean. That yes, that we say usually it's about people giving money, but actually it's just as instructive, especially in something as visible as that. This to to follow where the money did go. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, there we go. But then there's other companies, uh, some new product launches. Again, these are examples of trends. They're not the only product launches this week. There were still a ton. That's probably the part that's harder for us to keep up with.

Karen Lynch: There are so many product launches now, but yeah. And if, and you know, we, if we end up on some of the bigger companies, you know, it's that the smaller companies aren't also doing great things, it's just that the lessons can be learned from the bigger ones for all of the businesses in the ecosystem, right?

Lenny Murphy: So, yeah. Yep. And these three that we have, I think they encapsulate three big trends. So, do you want to start? You want me to dive in? No, yeah.

Karen Lynch: Why don't you talk about YouGov and then we'll take it from there. I'll talk about the next one and then you'll take the third one. So, yeah. You're closer in with YouGov, I think, in general.

Lenny Murphy: We've been talking quite a bit. They're interesting folks. I appreciate our relationship. YouGov, now they've AI-ified, right? Access to all of their data across all of their products. So it's an example of a company that is using AI to transition to become data infrastructure. Rather than just pure products. And that's part of what, what, and that's going to be the theme for all of these, right? The, um, but now you can, you can utilize the solutions they put in through natural language queries, um, to, uh, to go through all of their day and they sit on a load of data. Um, you know, they, they, they run their own proprietary work as well as licensing. So they actually have an amazingly rich data repository, and they're unlocking more value to that.

Karen Lynch: And it's these always-on dashboards, right, that you can interrogate, you know, at any time you can interrogate your data. You're not just getting static reports. You're not just getting, you know, this is a one-and-done thing. You're always able to get in there and, you know, kind of go into your, you know, go into your information, check it out, ask it different questions at different times, and that, I think, is the biggest the biggest trends that we're seeing that kind of AI has unlocked for everybody is just, you know, you know, we're gone are the days of the one and done, right? That is just not the way research works anymore. It's dashboards that you can that are living, breathing research ecosystems now. So it's a great example of that.

Lenny Murphy: Yep, unlocking utility and usability. Yeah, I think that's, you know, that that is, uh, now, but on the flip side kind of, uh, was the news with, uh, with Harris and, uh, and New IQ, um, because they realize that, uh, so that you still want a PowerPoint, or you still want to cross.

Karen Lynch: So what's interesting about this though, is, you still want the stuff, right? Cause they're still going to present. They still have to present it. You still have to tell a story to people. So they're taking their traditional outputs and turning him into something, but recognizing that the audience is AI also. So anybody who's in content marketing or content at this point understands you also have to recognize that AI is your reader. So what's interesting about this is your deliverables have to recognize that you also want to have AI as your reader at the enterprise level. So your deliverable has to be readable by AI. So you're feeding not only your stakeholders, but you're also feeding your internal AI systems. So it is interesting because your decks don't, they can't just look good. They need to look good, but they can't just look good. They also have to be highly readable and structured that way, AI ready output. So that is very interesting. You know, it really does point to a different kind of a trend. So yes, we want dashboards. We want, you know, always on accessible, you know, accessible data that we can, or accessible information we can interrogate at any time. We want deliverables that we can share out because we still have to tell a story to stakeholders. But we also need the deliverables to be readable by AI. Like, it's just such a different world of research at the moment. So it's really interesting to kind of think about these shifts, like we are living in a changed research world.

Lenny Murphy: We are, and to fit into infrastructure, right? Now that's interesting. Harris Poll is owned by Stagwell. Stagwell is a marketing organization, Mark Pence company. And they have the Stagwell Cloud, right? Which is all these different data sources. So it's a piece of this like, let's make sure that the research flows are fitting into this cloud infrastructure. Which is going to be plugged into all types of different things. We've talked about this before. Sometimes these are almost technical, like, no, it's a left-handed spanner. You think, well, that's not sexy and cool. Well, yeah, it is when you think about what it unlocks. This is one of those things that it's unlocking utilization and utility of data. While still having that balance of, I still want to see from PowerPoint.

Karen Lynch: Um, yeah, yeah. Well, what I want to be able to do, and I'm sure that both of these organizations are probably there. Like I want to have my dashboard and I want to be able to, I want to be able to have this research question in mind. I want to be able to interrogate my data, like always on, like, I want to, I want to go in there today and I want to ask this question, see if I have information about it and then like download, download a quick deck and then bring it to my, you know, bring it to my CEO and say, Hey, here's what I found out this morning. Because you asked me that question overnight. That's what I really want to be able to do as a researcher. So I'm sure they're moving us in that direction and then be able to be like, yeah, now let me feed that back to my AI because I got the data, I found that answer, and I'll put that in so that I have that information there and I've done some training.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. Well, I'll give you a scoop. I don't know if I even told you about this. I played, this is my own, just me, I took all of the last couple of rounds of grit and I created an AI based dashboard, um, that allows you to explore the data any way you want to download editable charts from it. It's an experiment. I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do with it.

Karen Lynch: He's gone.

Lenny Murphy: What? Who's gone.

Karen Lynch: I'm here.

Lenny Murphy: I'm here. Karen. Oh. Oh. Folks, I don't know if it's Karen that's gone or me that was gone Okay, so you can hear me so Karen dropped Okay. Well, that's good news. I was about to log on twice. Do me a favor. Just tell me again right now. Can you hear me? Please somebody just comment Tim somebody else Carly I know you're normally in the background, but can you hear me? Yes. OK. All right. So Karen dropped. Sorry. That was the first, I think. So the show must go on while Karen is trying to resolve those issues. Usually it's me who has those types of problems. So yeah. Cool stuff. Now let's talk about Norstat. They launched their expert network for B2B audiences. You have, great, thank you guys in the comments, I appreciate that. The, so Norstat's been acquiring lots of companies, particularly in, in Europe, but not just, building out their sample capabilities overall. The, in this particular case, now they've launched a b2b platform all right thank you guys all right thank you um an expert network spanning 22 countries uh and they are looking at the c-suite cfos it decision makers uh etc etc um for surveys interviews and focus groups the important piece here is that they in this type of arena specifically they are focusing on on verified respondents, on verified people. And that is kind of the emphasis in these expert networks that we see emerging, that there is usually a fairly robust kind of KYC, know your customer process, in getting people engaged. People are, and particularly for B2B, because generally the incentives are more, to be able to validate, yes, this is, you know, lending Murphy CEO of, you know, Murphy incorporated, whatever. Um, so another big shift in, uh, in emphasizing the quality, uh, oh, and she's back. That's good. I thought it was me, but that's all right. But the audience was like, no, let me, we hear you. So I was, I'd moved on to, uh, to North stat.

Karen Lynch: So I just have no idea what happened there. So just keep talking and yeah, just keep talking. I'll catch up after I stop cursing. My text messages.

Lenny Murphy: That's all right. We're talking about Norstat and then the real takeaway on verified, validated, high quality human respondents. And as that is being built as an asset. So not just access to the respondent, but the data itself. And we do touch on this a little bit in our interest in reading that, you know, are approaching a world very quickly where, where data access, we've exhausted all the available data, we need new pools of insight, we need new pools of information of human data. And so these types of moves by companies like North Stat, even, you know, Harris Poll, they have their own panel. And you go, we're all positioning for that world, where these access to humans become easily accessible and become assets that are deployed in multiple ways, uh, both for primary research and for, you know, synthetic, et cetera, et cetera.

Karen Lynch: And those are the big, my big takeaways. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, to me, this, this whole story is all good because, uh, you know, like this is just more and more, more and more evidence towards, you know, brands being able to regain confidence in, you know, verified humans and, you know, suppliers, you know, suppliers getting on board with with the, as you said, the assets, excuse me, assets in really, you know, continuing to tell the data quality story. So, yep, yep. All good news.

Lenny Murphy: Yep. Now, so this last week, we talked about this next piece, the open AI with their deploy co 10 billion enterprise a deployment company. Yeah, but it was really this week. Yeah, they launched. I don't know, I've seen so many. We need you to know forward deployed engineers if you're a forward deployed engineer. Yeah, which are effectively consultants who understand tech? Yeah, yeah, basically, but yeah, yeah ten billion dollars JV with openly on anthropic has one too. Yeah, and they're trying to move AI into production, so look at our example earlier if you know the platforms. Yeah. I mean, today you think, Oh, it's okay. We've integrated with P and G. Well, when you have to integrate with, you know, Lenny's regional pizza, the, um, that's a different story that let the push for the infrastructure and the, you know, the, you know, the, the, integration, that transformation into that is significant. Plus, these guys part of it is not just deploy it, but oh, you want a new research workflow? Yeah, here, they do that as part of the deployment.

Karen Lynch: So I think, you know, for me, I spent a lot of time really trying to understand how this is different from like, you know, how is this different from like, you know, how we are currently using things today, right? You know, how are you currently, you know, like how we are using AI today. And it's like, this is different because this is baked in, right? This isn't software layered upon your infrastructure. This is engineered into it. Yes.

Lenny Murphy: And custom designed for your business.

Karen Lynch: Right. For your business. So it is literally, you know, seamless for the user because it is just what you use. Right. And I think that that's what's very interesting about this is this is a whole different play. And it's going to be very interesting. And that's thus $10 billion. And actually, when you really drill down, $10 billion doesn't actually seem like enough. When you really think about it, it's like, actually, maybe it should be a little bit more than that. Because it feels like a big undertaking. So I wouldn't be surprised if that goes up once I get started.

Lenny Murphy: Will. And your husband's being funny. So I'm gonna take the challenge. He says, Don't say FTE three times. It's like Beetlejuice. FTE. What's the point that Palantir salespeople appear? And that's a really good example, right? The, the, and so it's the hybrid, the tech, we've been talking about this tech, but you need the human layer to understand it. And this is what Palantir did. Palantir's a big damn company. They built this tech and then they hired a bunch of people, not necessarily to sell it, but to say, Oh, here's how we can deploy this technology in your environment to address your issues. And that is a different ball game than we're just licensing tech. And that's that $10 billion. So this, this really wanted to get through. That's for people.

Karen Lynch: Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: That's what we're usually, you see a $10 million investment. We're going to scale the technology. That's not what this is about. Thus, we're going to hire a buttload of people and not strictly developers, but people, but business strategists, consultants who understand technology, who can go to a client and say, Oh, well, we can do this. And then they got the developers to deploy it. Uh, and that's a different business model, reinforcing the emphasis on people, which I think that that is the good news out of this. That was like good news, but, but particularly. It's reinforcing. Tools, you got a bunch of tools. Now the market is recognizing people didn't know how to use those tools, how to build things.

Karen Lynch: Cheryl Kane-Piasecki, MD, and if you're not techie and you need a metaphor you're not buying off the rack. You're having it custom-made.

Lenny Murphy: Patrick Shepherd It's tailored. It's tailored.

Karen Lynch: Cheryl Kane-Piasecki, MD I mean, you're having a little bit of couture custom-made just for you.

Lenny Murphy: Or you've you've bought a house and you need a designer you need or you need an architect you need a Skilled craftsman to come in. I need to tear down a wall to build a wall, right? I mean all of those analogies fundamentally this is about people knowing how to make stuff and that's that's the cool part Yeah, but not tableau now.

Karen Lynch: I didn't know how to hold on. Hold on. Hold on James.

Lenny Murphy:  Really?

Karen Lynch: It'll be interesting what will happen with platforms like SPSS and when you can just build multivariate analysis algorithms into research workflows.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, I agree, Gemma. That goes back to the Medallia conversation, right? We saw the SaaS apocalypse, the issues, unfortunately, with Qualtrics, with the funding approval. I think that that is the open point now. If you are a specialist SaaS application, it's pretty easy. Look at that by example building a grid dashboard, right? I'm not a developer, but I knew exactly how to define what I wanted, and I let AI build the damn thing, and it works right. Are we gonna scale that or anything? I don't know if it was an example of your point as long as I could explain what I want and could trust that it works on the back end. Yeah, but that process of building it, excuse me. There's no there's no moat on the technology Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that's why that's actually a good segue to the next part of Tableau. Yeah. But I didn't know they were part of my Salesforce. Did you know that?

Karen Lynch: I did not know that. I mean, I didn't track it. No, no. So yeah, so Tableau introducing agentic analytics platform built around conversation, conversational analytics, knowledge engine, automated decision workflow, governance, security, all this stuff, but designed to put push insights into tools people are using, Slack, Teams, Cloud, ChatGPT, it's going right in there.

Lenny Murphy: Workflow integration.

Karen Lynch: Workflow integration. And, you know, when I was reading this one and I was thinking about it, I was like, it's sort of like what we were talking about with the Medallia story. This is all like, everything comes together, right? Like it's, it's not just a tool that people use to bring things to life, right? We're talking about, you know, using, using agentic AI to actually, you know, to have it just right there in the workflow, right, what we're talking about here, like, let's just move it right along here so that it's a smooth process from here's what we have, here's what we need to do with it so that it just happens. It's when we started talking about agentic AI, I don't even remember when, it's probably been a year since we started talking about it, maybe more. And we were saying, imagine this being possible, this is possible. You know, it's what we could see happening or what could see coming. But now it's being realized. And I think it's really cool.

Lenny Murphy: Well, and it goes back against the Medallia thing, the platform, right. So the difference here is, instead of you coming to us, this shift is, we're coming to you. Yeah. Right. We're not going to make you log in to us specifically. Instead, we're going to unlock the utility and usability of these resources by going where you are. It's like meeting the customer where they are in these standard workflows. And that is just such a radically different business model.

Karen Lynch:  Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: You know, let's say I, I, what others kind of, I've not gotten to the point where, where an AI system is my operating system. Yeah, I've resisted that. It's like, no, I'm, I like these tools. I don't want to have to go here every time. So now seeing those integrations now, like, OK, good, now I can access these capabilities in the environments that I'm used to and like, where it makes sense to me, instead of going externally. And we're going to see more of that. And actually, we didn't, we didn't touch on it here, but it's something that's worth throwing out. That world, that MCP and skills, that's what's defining that. And now we're seeing the emergence of markets. So what does that look like when your tool does that work? Either your, your tool or your IP are now codified as something that looks like, um, an asset that is plugged in and interchanged across the board. Um, that's a whole other world. That's like, but we're heading there and that's what this integration, these integration stories say in my mind. Um, what did you think about the, uh, uh, the LSE papers?

Karen Lynch: Cause that's all you did. I know. Of course, this is the one I read first, right? So the London School of Economics and Political Science shared a paper, and then I think it was the voice of the user who shared the London School of Economics and Political Science paper on AI-led interviewing. It corroborates everything that I've been saying, everything that we've been saying on this show, everything that a lot of people are saying, which is AI-moderated qualitative research Um, you know, it has its place in, you know, the researcher's toolbox. It is, it is, it is not just becoming easier to defend. It is not a novelty that is going to come and go. Um, it is a method that, um, is not going away and it's not that it should do everything it shouldn't. And it's not that it shouldn't do everything because it can do some things. And there's a really good kind of quote in the Voice for Users read that we'll share, which is, it's long. The implication is that AI moderated interviewing belongs in the methods stack on its own terms, not as a substitute for human led work, not as a faster version of the same instrument, as a different instrument with different affordances, particularly for sensitive topics, polarized topics, polarized topics, and any research where social desirability bias is the thing standing between you and the truth. I loved that, because I can't tell you as a moderator how often I know people want to say the thing that they want me to hear, that they think I want to hear. You cannot avoid that with certain topics, and it's really challenging. And no matter what you do, those topics are just, that is just an elephant in the room. And it's like, I know they're just saying that because they, you know, help that I spent a lot of time on, you know, in the food and beverage category and people do not want me to think badly of their eating habits. You know, that is just, they do not, they just don't want to be forthcoming, whether they, I've worked on supplements, they do not want to admit that they just don't take their vitamins. You know, like they really, they don't want to admit where they are weak as human beings.

Lenny Murphy: They don't want to do that. And they go to McDonald's every day, but nobody knows.

Karen Lynch: Right? There are just certain things that they do, saying it out loud to a human being is really hard. Saying it out loud to AI, they're going to be a little more honest. I 100% agree. So yeah, but I was already sold on this concept. I believe that there are certain instances where you're going to be more honest with an AI interview. I was already there. So I think it's a good paper. I think that if you're still saying no to it, I really urge you to be a little more open-minded. And I know it's cutting into the work of a lot of qualitative researchers, and I am sorry. But I really encourage you to be really informed about what it's good for and do service to your clients by saying, here's what it's good for. Here's what I can do better and do them that service. And then, you know, say, hey, learn the different platforms that are really good at it and say, I'll help you do it. Like that's what the good moderators are doing right now. They're saying like, I will be kind of your project manager for that AI moderated qual. Like I'll take that on for you so that you don't have to venture into that unknown world. And I'll be your liaison and you can still have a business model around that.

Lenny Murphy: Be the orchestrator.

Karen Lynch: Be the orchestrator.

Lenny Murphy: Be the brains, be the consultant, be the strategist, be the orchestrator. And we increasingly, and I don't know if I've ever said it exactly this way on The Exchange, but I will say it again now, we don't own the process anymore. We never will again. That's not, and it's not our value. That's not our value. We built businesses round the process, because we had to, right? I have to recruit people, I have to do this, and it has cost implications, et cetera, et cetera. But that was never the real value for most businesses. Field services, sure, but even then, I would argue, field services were performing a function. Hey, don't worry about this, we'll take care of these processes for you. The world now is, you know, there's some processes that we will manage and deploy expressly, but most importantly, you need to orchestrate the tools appropriately. And this is a great example of that. And to put it three years ago, do you remember when you and I were first demoed, and it was just three years ago, the first AI moderated qual platform, three years ago, Search Goat.

Karen Lynch: I can't even.

Lenny Murphy: Search Goat. I do.

Karen Lynch: I do.

Lenny Murphy: Do you remember what they morphed into? We won't go into that. But, at that point, we both were like, that's not fit. That's not ready for prime time yet.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Three years later.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. I mean, yeah, crazy to think about. I just can't believe how fast time flies. It's really stressful.

Lenny Murphy: So this last article, and here we are, we had less content.

Karen Lynch: We're So maybe it's not the content is we like to talk too much Deeper right fewer articles to share out, but we dug deeper Maybe maybe we lost a lot of time when my internet glitched. Maybe that's it.

Lenny Murphy: It felt like it felt like eternity to me Anderson Horowitz if you don't subscribe to Anderson Horowitz Substack, really encourage you to do that. They're, they really are this big VC firm. There's a lot of great thinking that happens in that firm, a ton. And here is one from System of Record to System of Intelligence. This is all about us, guys. This is all about our industry. It is all, even though they don't say it that way. But it's about the data being valuable, but the reasoning on top of the data that drives the intelligence being part of the decision intelligence infrastructure, which inherently that is where we fit. That's where the value lies. It's a really inspiring article. All this stuff around research platforms and tools and all these things, right? It fits in this broader context of decision intelligence, system of intelligence and this architecture and we got folks like Anderson Horowitz saying this is where this is all structured. And by the way, I'm sure they'll appreciate that I agreed with them. I know they're waiting to hear whether I agree.

Karen Lynch: Yes. But everybody likes to hear when Lenny agrees.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, you know, I'm Mark. Mark Anderson's going, Oh, does plenty agree. Anyway, really, really great article, though, to put the big picture context in there. So, yeah.

Karen Lynch: Comment from Javaria. I agree. It's really cool, by the way, when LSE is writing about this and publishing information on that. Actually, I really love when any academic institution is publishing on things that are relevant to our industry, because it does bring a different weight to you know, when academia weighs in on the things that are important to our industry, it is very exciting. I love when academia weighs in agreement with you a hundred percent.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. It's the imprimatur of legitimacy, right? I mean, there's a different credibility piece here. So anybody who's meaning, well, folks whose whole job is just to understand these things. 

Karen Lynch: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's pretty obvious that it works.

Lenny Murphy: We didn't, uh, we didn't do any plugs. We should probably do that.

Karen Lynch: Uh, cause you, uh, it's plugs because EU, I mean, it is going to be here. Oh, thank you, Carly. Carly's probably like, about damn time, about damn time. So yes, IAX Europe is coming up sooner than I can even wrap my head around. It'll be here before you know it. You know, plane tickets are booked, man. It's going to be a fantastic show. It always is in Europe. It's just a, if you just finished up with us at IAX North America and you're coming to Europe, It's like an exhale. It is a very different event, similar but different. It's a bit of an exhale. It's still elevated content. And the venue is sort of, it just feels like a little bit elevated. I can't really explain it other than that. A little less kind of East Coast intense is the way I describe it, but really great brands, great content, good plenary sessions that will be sure to inspire.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, not as frenetic.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, not as frenetic, not as you know, you feel it because there's only three stages. One of the biggest differences is that there's only three stages. And so you know, people are a little more relaxed. And plus, it's just European, you know, who doesn't love that vibe?

Lenny Murphy: Especially in Amsterdam.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, yeah. Yes, exactly. So yeah, so that's coming up soon. And yeah, I think that's probably our big I guess plug and then what else do we have to plug?

Lenny Murphy: No, just I mentioned grit and the dashboard. The report is actually put together. Yeah. It's probably at this point I can be released until after Memorial Day.

Karen Lynch: Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: So for Europe is that the new date?

Karen Lynch: Whatever. 

Lenny Murphy:  Soon.

Karen Lynch: No, I think it might be released. I think we're doing the forum in July, though. I think we're forming. Yeah, we're going to do this. Forming a verb. Forming.

Lenny Murphy: I'll tell you what, though, that, so, guys, when that report comes out, and you'll be getting more and more sneak peeks, obviously, I've, you know, been neck-deep in it as well, it is really impactful. I mean, everything that we talk about, and maybe that's a non-fair advantage, but you should know that, right? But we do, we do have access to some things internally that, like early versions of Grit, and it helps inform our thinking. And, but Trust is going to be one that you're going to want to read. If there's a little, everything we talk about, we've Quantified all these changes. So on that note, we still went 45 minutes, which I'm fine with the audience . Please do let us know whether you like this Less content more conversation or it's like you could just shut up and keep it to 30 minutes. That's alright. Just email us and let us know.

Karen Lynch: Yeah Anyway, I see the comment too about could you enable caption subtitles Carly? I know you're listening in. I don't know if we have that option. We can see captions or subtitles or something so people can follow along. I have no idea if that's an option, but we can look into it. So yeah, does that work? Harley who produces it? I have no idea if our platforms allow us to do that, but we'll see. Yeah, we will look into it. So thank you for asking.

Lenny Murphy: Yes, I think it does that on YouTube. Well, we'll figure it out.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right, folks. Lenny, we'll see you next week with a special guest. I will not because I will be watching my daughter. It's a lot of fun. It's a bundle of energy and in all the best ways. So it'll be different.

Lenny Murphy: Uh, it'll just, it'll be different, but yeah, it'll be, you know, it'll be fun. So tune in. Yeah. Yeah. So very cool.

Karen Lynch: Very cool. All right.

Lenny Murphy: First of all, thank you so much for joining us today. We're going to be talking a little bit about, you know, the, the, See you next time.

Karen Lynch: Bye everybody. Bye.

Links from the episode:

Uncertain Future for Medallia After Debts Mount 

YouGov AI Agent Now Live Across Full Crunch Platform 

The Harris Poll Introduces AI-Ready Research Packet in Partnership with NeuIQ 

Norstat Launches Expert Network for Verified B2B Audiences 

OpenAI Launches DeployCo — A $10B Enterprise AI Deployment Company 

Tableau Unveils Agentic Analytics Platform with Six Pillars 

LSE: The Strongest Empirical Paper Yet on AI-Led Interviewing 

a16z: From "System of Record" to "System of Intelligence"