Leaving no stone unturned, AI continues its march through the nooks and crannies of business operations, and new research from experience management firm Qualtrics reveals a significant impact on market research in the coming year and beyond—showing that within three years, more than half of market research may be done using AI-created, synthetic personas instead of humans. But instead of displacement, the research shows a strong need for skilled people.
The firm’s new 2025 Market Research Trends report reveals rapid changes in the ways companies learn about their markets from potential customers. Facing privacy concerns, budget constraints, and increased demand for real-time information, researchers are staying competitive by embracing innovation, including new AI-powered automations, digital tools, and predictive analytics to stay competitive.
“As budgets come under scrutiny, proving the value of research is essential, and keeping a pulse on the rapidly changing perceptions of consumers is the key to providing strategic recommendations,” said Ali Henriques, Global Head of Research Services at Qualtrics, in a news release. “Traditional research methods can’t keep up with today’s consumers, and the research teams on the cutting edge are seeing demand for their services increase in 2025.”
The firm asked more than 3,000 market researchers across 14 countries about the trends that will shape the research industry and how they will impact their organizations’ priorities in 2025, and the following four trends emerged:
1) Synthetic data is turning privacy by design into competitive advantage
Nearly three quarters (71 percent) of market researchers agree that the majority of market research will be done using synthetic responses within 3 years. These artificially generated responses mimic real-world information and personas. According to researchers, this shift will help address top industry challenges like limited budgets, privacy concerns, data scarcity, and survey fatigue.
Although some researchers are hesitant due to a lack of familiarity, 87 percent of those who have used synthetic responses report high satisfaction with the results. Synthetic responses have proven particularly valuable for testing packages, names, and messaging, according to the study.
“With the increasing reliance on online samples in market research, researchers face growing data quality issues,” said Henriques. “Synthetic respondents offer researchers a way to access diverse demographics, and generating synthetic data is faster and more cost-effective than traditional methods, empowering organizations to make confident decisions and speed up their time-to-market.”
2) Research teams that innovate have more influence and larger budgets
Researchers who identified their teams as being “on the cutting edge of innovation” were more likely to say their influence, budgets and demand for their work had increased.
These more sophisticated teams have conducted a wider variety of research compared to other profiles, including user experience (UX) and brand research.
“By embracing new innovative approaches and methodologies, cutting edge research teams are enhancing their relevance and establishing themselves as vital contributors to organizational success, in contrast to those that continue to rely on traditional methods,” said Henriques.
3) AI will be a permanent member of the modern research team
Researchers are increasingly using AI-powered tools to help with everyday tasks like data cleansing, summarization and reporting, continuing a trend observed last year. An overwhelming share of researchers (89 percent) are already using AI tools regularly or in experimental phases and 83 percent reported that their organizations plan to significantly increase AI investment in 2025.
Challenges to AI integration remain, and researchers reported the top challenges were ensuring the quality of third-party panels and effectively identifying and preventing AI-generated responses. However, 72 percent of researchers expect AI to predict market trends more accurately than human analysts within 3 years, and 71 percent agree that AI will explain research findings as well as humans within 3 years.
4) Digital qual tools make it simple to keep the human element
AI-powered capabilities are driving increasing demand for digital qualitative research, such as online focus groups. Researchers can achieve similar results to in-person interviews using AI-powered capabilities like eye tracking, intelligent video analysis, and automated participant recruitment. About three quarters (74 percent) of researchers who use AI regularly have seen an increase in qualitative research demand, compared to the 49% that are still experimenting with it and the 22 percent that have not yet tried AI in their research projects.
Traditional in-person qualitative research methods typically provide deeper, more nuanced insights into participant emotions and motivations than quantitative methods, allowing for a richer understanding of the context and emotions behind a participant’s responses. However, in-person qualitative research presents a number of challenges, including higher costs, limited sample sizes, and time-consuming analysis.
New digital qualitative tools powered by AI allow research teams to extend their reach, explore new topics, and more quickly uncover insights from their qualitative research. These methods also reduce the risk of fraud. Nearly half (45 percent) of researchers cited increasing levels of bots and fraud in quantitative research as one of the top reasons digital qualitative research is becoming more appealing.
