Of Researchers and Robots

Or how I stopped worrying and learned to love AI in market research

There was a time when market research was… quieter.

You got a client brief. You built the questionnaire line by line. Sent it for translation. Waited for coding. Waited some more for data. Exported tables. Cleaned them. Made a presentation. Then another. Maybe two versions, depending on who asked the questions. You went to sleep and woke up with a follow-up.

And we called this “normal”.

But let’s be honest: we weren’t hired to do formatting. Or translate the same satisfaction scale 300 times. Or copy-paste banners into slides.

We were hired to understand people. And somewhere along the way, we lost time for that.

Enter Brainactive. Not with trumpets and fanfare, but with actual utility.

A few of us at DataDiggers started testing it early, out of curiosity more than anything. What does this thing know about questionnaires? What could it possibly do better than a human?

As it turns out: quite a lot. Just not the parts we love.

It writes good surveys. Fast. In multiple languages.
It knows what a decent IR looks like and tells you if your target is off.
It builds charts before I finish my second coffee.
And most days, it feels like an intern that doesn’t complain, doesn’t get tired, and never misses a deadline.

But here’s the twist: I’m still the brain running the research.
I decide what matters. I read between the lines. I spot the insight that are not in the charts.

Some people are scared AI will replace researchers.
My take? Not the good ones. Just the overwhelmed ones.

Brainactive doesn’t take my job. It gives it back.

It takes the repetitive, operational, “ugly but necessary” parts of the job and automates them, leaving more room for thinking, storytelling, asking better questions.

So far, it helped me deliver better work, faster, with less stress, for me and my clients.

So no, I’m not afraid of robots.
Because when they do the chores, I finally get to do the work.

And that, to me, is progress.