Future of market research

I recently sat down with colleagues to discuss the future of market research, what will the industry be doing in years to come? Will we become redundant to technology?



For me the most interesting thing that came out of this discussion was the possible extinction of traditional question and answer research methodologies. If tomorrow's technology provides the ability to understand exactly what consumers are thinking without anyone asking a question - would Q&A become extinct, arguably YES.



However, this doesn't mean researchers are redundant, far from it, clients will still need someone to makes sense of the information and link it to their business. Imagine, a day and age, when consumers are fitted with computer chips that record thoughts, feelings, needs, wants, attitudes, and beliefs etc every second of the day. This same computer chip also records the stimulus (e.g. media) prompting these reactions. This would create a mass of information with none of the current caveats around consumers not being able to articulate how they feel etc. Someone will need to digest and distil this data and return it in the form of useful insight!



It could be our collective insecurity surrounding our worth in future, but we came to the conclusion that researchers (like we have in past) will adapt to technological changes and still feed the primary need our clients have for information.