In consumer research, numbers tell part of the story, but not the whole story. To uncover the full picture, you need to see and hear your audience. That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of asynchronous video interviews, now built directly into the SightX platform.  Read our official press release here for more details on the launch.

Why Video Interviews Matter

Video interviews have long been a powerful way to capture qualitative insights, but until now, they often required juggling separate tools, complex workflows, or time-consuming live sessions. With SightX, you can now capture authentic, emotive feedback directly inside your surveys. No third-party tools, no extra setup.

This means you can:

• Collect video responses alongside your quantitative data
• Capture unfiltered, authentic feedback anytime, anywhere
• Bring real human context into your insights at scale

Powerful Features Built In

SightX’s native video interviews go beyond just recording responses:

• AI-powered transcript summaries and theme extraction for faster analysis
• A searchable media library for quick review and downloads
• Seamless integration into survey flows, with everything managed in one platform

Unlike other platforms that rely on third-party integrations, SightX embeds video collection directly into your surveys, removing added costs, complexity, and delays.

Use Cases Across Your Research

• Add real voices to concept testing and message validation
• Capture emotional reactions to new products or campaigns
• See consumers’ home environments, like pantry shelves or daily routines, without costly in-home visits
• Enrich stakeholder presentations with authentic, human stories

Start Capturing the Human Story

The asynchronous video interview feature is now available in SightX. Survey data gives you scale, video gives you context, and SightX brings them together in one seamless platform.

Ready to see it in action? Book a demo or reach out to your SightX rep to explore how video interviews can fit into your research program.

Your data has never looked, or sounded, this human.

A Conversation Between Dr. Naira Musallam and Priscilla McKinney on AI, Design, and Defying the Odds

In a recent episode of the podcast Digital Transformation Success, SightX co-founder Dr. Naira Musallam sat down with Little Bird Marketing’s Priscilla McKinney for an inspiring conversation about the evolution of data science, building inclusive technology, and the very human side of innovation.

Below are some of the most insightful moments from their conversation.

Q: What led you to start SightX?

“In 2012, there was an HBR article that referred to data scientists as having ‘the sexiest job of the 21st century’, but 70% of their time was spent on prep work. What a waste of human potential. After all, the only commodity you can't get back is time."

Naira shared that SightX was born from a personal frustration: watching highly skilled data scientists and researchers waste time cleaning and formatting fragmented data. That realization led to a mission to eliminate the fragmentation in research workflows and give people back their time to focus on meaningful work. The vision was to create an all-in-one streamlined consumer insight platform, with research methodologies that are easy to set up, with automated yet flexible analytics.

Q: What's keeping your customers up at night?

"They’re expected to do more with less."

Whether in insights, strategy, or product roles, SightX customers are under pressure to produce smarter, faster research, on tighter timelines and with fewer resources. That’s why automation and streamlined workflows have become core to the platform’s value.

Q: Let's talk about AI. How do you separate the hype from the real opportunity?

AI isn’t just a buzzword for Naira, it’s a toolset that’s evolving rapidly. But she’s candid about where it excels and where it falls short.

“What you’re trying to do is enable a machine to do what a human once did. But can it now generate something I couldn’t predict myself?”

At SightX, that meant embracing both automation and AI, but doing so with intention.

While AI may hallucinate or feel like a black box, it’s transformative for qualitative inputs like text, transcripts, and images; areas where NLP and generative tools thrive. For quant, however, SightX continues to rely on its own automated library of validated formulas. Accuracy still matters, and no one can afford blackboxes in quantitative analytics.

“We decided to disrupt our own code and build on what we’ve mastered.”

Q: Why build your own code from scratch?

It all comes back to scaling expertise and making what is complex, simple. That’s why design is central to the SightX experience.

“We wanted methodologies that were smart and sophisticated… and easy to use. If people feel uncomfortable using the platform, it doesn’t scale anything.”

Inclusivity means anyone, from a statistician to a brand marketer, should be able to extract meaningful insights with confidence.

Priscilla reflected: 

“We like to interact with beautiful things, and your platform is a beautiful thing. The simplicity and user experience really matter.”

Q: What advice would you give to up-and-coming data scientists?

Naira reflected on how quickly the field has evolved:

“Ten years ago, it was ‘you need to code.’ Now it’s about writing prompts.”

But the most important skill?

“Curiosity. Flexibility. A hunger to learn. That mindset matters more than any hard skill. We’re looking at the future through the limits of our imagination. Things will change in ways we can’t even anticipate. Being open to change is essential."

Q: What about advice for women in tech?

“Don’t get disheartened. There are challenges, yes, but also incredible stories of people defying odds and forging new futures. Focus on that. Let it energize you. Nothing great comes from focusing on the negative.”

And above all, she emphasized the power of connection:

“Human relationships, genuine ones, go a long way, especially when you least expect them to.”

Listen to the full episode: “What Sexy Data Scientists Are Doing These Days” with Naira Musallam and Priscilla McKinney
 

As we cross the halfway mark of 2025, we’re taking a moment to reflect on everything that’s made this year a standout so far. From new platform capabilities and educational content to key event takeaways and transformative partnerships, SightX is continuing to push the boundaries of what’s possible in consumer research. Let’s take a look back—and a step forward.

📣 Want the official recap? Read the H1 2025 press release.

Product Enhancements for Smarter, Stronger Research

SightX Communities

Engage the right audience, every time. Our new Communities feature helps users:

• Create connections: Build a centralized database of your contacts, making it easy to engage with your audience.
• Personalize outreach: Send tailored survey invitations that resonate with the right people at the right time.
• Unlock advanced targeting: Use contact properties to apply survey logic, quotas, and segmentation for deeper insights. 

It’s a tool that not only helps you understand your audience, but also makes managing them effortless. 

Custom Visualization & Branding Suite

Your research, your way. Our new Branding Suite empowers you to:

• Customize logos, colors, and fonts
• Edit chart labels and rename axes
• Generate ready-to-share reports in minutes

Now, insights don’t just inform—they make an impression.

Coming Soon: What’s Next on the Platform

Scale Human Understanding with Asynchronous Video Interviews
Soon, you’ll be able to conduct asynchronous video interviews directly within your surveys—capturing authentic, unfiltered consumer feedback at scale. 

Whether you’re:

• Uncovering deeper context behind quantitative results
• Gathering emotive responses for stakeholder storytelling
• Enhancing concept tests or message validation with real voices
• Powering virtual IHUTs, focus groups, or shopper studies

…this capability enables rich, human-centered insights without the limitations of time zones or live sessions. You’ll also get:

• AI-powered transcript summaries & theme extraction
• A searchable media catalog for faster review & download
• Seamless integration into your existing survey flows

Stay in Control with Real-Time Credit Tracking

Transparency, built in. We're rolling out real-time credit tracking directly in your dashboard—so you can easily monitor activity, manage usage across projects, and plan ahead with confidence.

Website Enhancements That Empower 

The Content Hub Has Arrived

We launched the new SightX Content Hub to give researchers, strategists, and innovators a centralized resource for expert insights, practical tools, and forward-thinking frameworks. If you haven’t already, check out two new featured guides: 

• Mastering Product Innovation Research: A Step-by-Step Guide
• Unknown to Unforgettable: A Guide to Brand Awareness

Consumer Research Glossary

We also introduced a comprehensive glossary of consumer research terms, built to simplify industry jargon and strengthen research literacy across teams.

Event Highlights: Where We've Been & Where  We're Headed

Quirks Chicago 2025

This April, Quirks Chicago spotlighted the convergence of AI and human insight, and how brands are striking that balance in real time. We co-hosted a session with ZS, and recapped the key themes here:

• Emerging Themes at Quirks Chicago
• Balancing Speed, Cost & Quality

IIEX NA 2025

From co-creation to AI-powered scale, IIEX NA showed how research teams are leading real organizational transformation. We broke down six key industry trends in our recap: 6 Themes Shaping What’s Next in Insights

Next Stop: Quirks New York

Join us July 23–24 for live product demos and a session hosted by our Co-CEO and Co-founder, Naira Musallam,  titled:“Brand America Through Global Eyes: What Key Driver Analysis Predicts About Global Trust and Purchase Intent."

A Strategic Partnership Driving Impact

Through our strategic partnership with ZS Associates, we launched a hybrid research model that pairs SightX technology with ZS’s world-class consulting. It’s research that’s fast and flexible—without sacrificing depth. Read the full story

A New Era of Speed, Scale, and Strategic Impact

In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, the brands that win are the ones that understand their consumers deeply—and act on those insights quickly. But let’s be honest: that’s easier said than done. For years, research teams have had to choose between depth and efficiency, between quality and cost, between speed and scalability.

Not anymore.

We’re excited to officially announce a strategic partnership between SightX, the all-in-one, automated consumer research platform, and ZS, a global management consulting and professional services firm known for its deep consumer sector expertise. Together, we’re offering something completely new to the market—a research model that’s flexible, fast, scalable, and deeply strategic. One that not only serves and meets the needs of the insights professionals managing day-to-day projects and analysis, but the entire organization all the way up to the C-Suite. This alignment solidifies the impact and value of the research needed for real business growth. Read the full press release here.

Tim Colasurdo, Associate Director, Consumer and Shopper Insights at PIM Brands, recently shared his perspective on the impact of this new model: “We were able to move extremely fast, creating a segmentation linked to our demand landscape in six weeks versus five months. In the time we saved we were able to start implementing these learnings to bring innovations to market faster than we ever have.”

A First-of-Its-Kind Partnership

This partnership is a deliberate and thoughtfully designed collaboration. It brings together the best of both worlds: SightX’s agile, all-in-one consumer research technology paired with ZS’s domain knowledge and consulting experience.

It’s a first-of-its-kind pairing in the consumer insights space, one that allows brands to scale their research efforts without scaling their teams or budgets. The result? Richer insights delivered faster, and a more efficient path from question to answer to action.

“Traditional research often forces brands to choose between depth and efficiency,” said Tim Lawton, Co-CEO of SightX. “With ZS, we’re helping organizations make smarter, faster decisions without sacrificing the quality of insights. With research being done faster, without losing its richness, brands get time back in their day to focus on applying those insights to grow their business.” 

“This collaboration goes beyond a typical vendor relationship,” noted ZS Principal Russell Evans. “The traditional model of generating insights is no longer sustainable. Brands need more intelligence than ever but can’t afford to keep doing things the old way. That’s why we built a partnership that adapts to today’s realities. It’s a purposeful, flexible approach to market research, one that blends advanced technology with human expertise to accelerate insights, not replace them.”

Why This Matters for Today's Brands

Research has often been seen as a cost center—a necessary but sometimes resource-heavy part of the business. The SightX and ZS partnership turns that on its head, positioning research as a strategic driver of business growth.

Here’s what makes this partnership different:

• Accelerated speed-to-insights through integrated strategy and technology
• High-quality, data-driven research methodologies to drive strategic insights and audience understanding
• Reduced internal resource strain with end-to-end research enablement
• Proven expertise in turning insights into action to fuel brand growth and competitive advantage

Reimagining What Research Can Be

This is more than just a partnership, it’s a signal to the industry that consumer research can be reimagined. It can be both lean and deep. Fast and smart. Automated and strategic. And most importantly, it can be something that fuels business momentum instead of slowing it down.

If your team is ready to stop choosing between speed and quality and start getting more from your research investments, this partnership is your answer.

To learn more about how SightX and ZS can help your brand unlock smarter, faster, more impactful insights, reach out to hello@sightx.io.

Quirks Chicago 2025 was a showcase of cutting-edge trends in consumer insights, with a strong focus on artificial intelligence (AI), agility in product innovation, and the power of consumer co-creation. As the research landscape evolves, brands are increasingly adopting smarter, faster, and more consumer-centric strategies to drive innovation. Here are the key themes that emerged from the event:

1. AI as a Driver of Faster, Smarter Insights

AI’s integration with traditional research methodologies is becoming a game-changer in consumer insights. A Strategy Studio presentation demonstrated how AI can reduce project timelines dramatically, turning months-long processes into days. This enables companies to harness faster, better, and cheaper results without sacrificing quality. Their AI-driven approach has already enabled them to collaborate with over 35 global clients, driving innovation in sectors like healthcare, FMCG, and CPG.

Similarly, Church and Dwight’s partnership with Simporter AI highlighted AI’s ability to uncover market opportunities and trends by analyzing vast data sets. Combining AI with human expertise allows for rapid innovation, providing high-potential concepts ready for market testing. This agility in insights gives brands the flexibility to make strategic decisions quickly, driving faster and more informed actions.

However, one key takeaway from the event was that while AI’s potential is undeniable, it is an enabler, not a replacement for human insights. Kikke Riedel, VP of Strategy at MilkPEP, emphasized that AI has accelerated the research process, reducing costs and lowering risks. But when it comes to understanding deep emotional insights, AI still falls short. True innovation, according to experts like Valerie Sokolova of Kraft Heinz, comes from the deep, qualitative understanding of consumer behavior—the kind that AI cannot replicate.

2. The Power of Co-Creation in Product Innovation

Co-creation emerged as a powerful theme throughout the event, emphasizing the benefits of collaborating with consumers early in the product development process. Sargento and Curion showcased how integrating consumer insights into each development stage—from concept to final product—leads to more relevant, successful innovations. This agile innovation approach not only reduces time to market but also ensures a stronger product-market fit by constantly iterating based on real-time feedback.

Cheez-It further embraced co-creation through an AI-powered mobile chat platform, engaging consumers to test new flavors. This approach allowed the brand to gather deeper insights into consumer preferences and refine R&D briefs, resulting in the successful launch of their new Smoked flavors.

3. Consumer Emotions and Nostalgia in Brand Development

Consumer emotions, particularly nostalgia, were central to brand development discussions. J&J Snacks’ work with iconic brands like Dippin' Dots and ICEE revealed how leveraging nostalgic connections can drive brand loyalty and growth. Using AI-driven platforms like Quantum, J&J Snacks gathered insights into consumer perceptions and brand associations, ensuring that new product innovations maintained the brands’ nostalgic appeal while staying relevant to modern consumers.

This blend of qualitative and quantitative research methods allowed J&J Snacks to refine their brand strategies and ensure emotional resonance with their audience. The result was an innovative yet familiar approach that connected deeply with consumers on a personal level.

4. Unlocking the Power of Human Connection in Qualitative Research

While AI continues to drive efficiencies in insights gathering, human connections in qualitative research remain invaluable. A panel discussion highlighted the importance of real-time, human-driven interactions in understanding the nuances of consumer behavior. Experts from Major League Baseball, PepsiCo, and Kraft Heinz shared how qualitative research led to richer, more authentic insights, such as in Gatorade’s creative review, where respondents shared personal sports stories. This provided a deeper level of feedback that ultimately improved the final ad.

The panel also emphasized the role of qualitative insights in driving market innovations, like Daisy Squeeze sour cream, which was born from observing consumer frustrations with traditional packaging. Qualitative research led to the development of the squeezable product, which has since outperformed its competitors. These examples reinforced the need for deep, human connections in research, underscoring that AI alone cannot capture the emotional depth and subtle insights that come from direct consumer interactions.

5. Agility and Flexibility in Innovation Testing

Agility was a recurring theme throughout the event, particularly in the context of product testing. The ability to test quickly and iterate based on real-time consumer feedback is crucial in today’s fast-paced market. Cheez-It’s use of AI-powered mobile platforms for instant feedback allowed them to streamline the testing process and make decisions faster. Bayer and Coca-Cola’s collaboration on prebiotic sodas also demonstrated the importance of flexibility in exploring new product categories. Their ability to rapidly refine their approach based on consumer responses helped make their health-focused beverage, Simply Pop, a success.

6. Reimagining Knowledge Management in the Age of AI

AI-driven platforms are transforming knowledge management, making it easier for teams to access, analyze, and synthesize consumer insights across various geographies and brands. Market Logic Software’s platform exemplified this by providing teams with a one-stop solution to curate and understand marketing and consumer insights. By integrating various content types—including reports, visual data, and structured databases—the platform allows for real-time answers to business questions, ensuring that teams can leverage past research effectively.

For companies like Mars, this AI-driven approach has led to significant cost savings and improved decision-making. With features like personalized feeds and knowledge zones, the platform allows users to search, organize, and access content relevant to their roles, improving efficiency and collaboration across teams.

7. Leveraging AI for Smarter Strategy Across Categories

AI’s ability to uncover market opportunities and identify white spaces was another key theme. The partnership between Simporter AI and Church and Dwight showcased how AI can be used to explore niche markets and emerging trends. By analyzing large data sets, brands can stay ahead of the competition and develop solutions that resonate with consumers. This ability to spot unmet needs in mature markets enables brands to adapt and innovate quickly, ensuring that they remain relevant in a fast-evolving landscape.

8. AI's Role in Consumer Insights: Revolutionary, But Not a Replacement

As Quirks Chicago 2025 made clear, while AI is revolutionizing the consumer insights landscape, it does not replace the need for human understanding. AI excels at generating quick, actionable insights, but true innovation and consumer connection still require a deep dive into emotional insights. According to Hally Jhass from Keurig Dr Pepper, AI-backed insights help bridge the gap between consumer needs and business decisions, but qualitative research remains essential for digging into the "why" behind consumer behavior.

Tim Lawton of SightX and his colleagues highlighted that embracing AI in consumer insights requires a cultural shift. It’s not just about having the right technology—it’s about transforming how organizations think, act, and integrate insights into decision-making. Platforms like SightX, which offer end-to-end, automated quantitative research, help teams move faster without sacrificing quality—empowering insights professionals to focus more on strategy and storytelling. For a deeper dive into this topic, check out this blog post featuring insights and takeaways from their session - or check out a visual recap of the SightX session to see the team in action.

Conclusion: A Future-Ready Landscape for Consumer Insights

Quirks Chicago 2025 highlighted the increasingly vital role of AI in reshaping the consumer insights and product development landscape. From AI-driven research platforms to co-creation and agility in testing, the event showcased how brands are adopting more efficient, consumer-centric approaches to innovation. As AI continues to evolve, its role in enhancing productivity, enabling smarter strategies, and driving deeper consumer connections will only grow, positioning it as an essential tool for the future of consumer insights.

In this new landscape, combining AI with human expertise, understanding consumer emotions, and fostering collaboration through co-creation will be key to developing products and strategies that truly resonate with today’s consumers.

Consumer research should feel like an extension of your brand—not a one-size-fits-all experience. At SightX, we understand that the way you present insights is just as important as the insights themselves. That’s why we’re excited to introduce our Custom Visualization & Branding Suite,  game-changing features that give you full control over the look and feel of your research deliverables.

Why Customization Matters in Market Research

Traditionally, research outputs can feel disjointed—generic charts, standard formatting, and a lack of brand identity. For teams delivering insights internally or to clients, this can lead to extra hours spent reformatting reports, adjusting visuals, and ensuring data tells the right story.

With the Custom Visualization & Branding Suite, we’re putting an end to that struggle. Now, businesses can seamlessly integrate branding elements into their research while also fine-tuning data visualizations to align with their preferred language and structure.

Your Research, Your Way -- Now Even Better

✅ Brand It Your Way – Upload your logo, set your brand colors, and personalize your research experience for a consistent, professional look.

✅ Tailor Your Data Story – Edit chart labels, rename axes, and refine survey language to ensure insights are clear, compelling, and aligned with your organization’s communication style.

✅ Save Time on Deliverables – Automatically generate polished, presentation-ready decks in minutes—eliminating the need for tedious, manual reformatting.

Less Time Formatting, More Time Acting on Insights

The ability to quickly customize research outputs means teams can spend less time on design tweaks and more time on what really matters—extracting actionable insights and driving strategic decisions.

As consumer insights continue to evolve, research platforms must keep pace, providing businesses with flexibility, efficiency, and branding capabilities that meet their unique needs. The Custom Visualization & Branding Suite is just one more way SightX is making research more intuitive, customizable, and impactful.