The market research industry is being redefined by what happens after the data comes back, not by how it is collected. For decades, the value a research provider offered was operational: recruit the right respondents, field a clean survey, deliver a tidy dataset on time. That work still matters. But it is no longer where the competitive edge sits.

According to ESOMAR’s 2025 Global Market Research Report, the global insights industry has crossed $150 billion, with research software alone growing 11.5% year-over-year to more than $62 billion. Growth is no longer coming from collecting more data. It is coming from what organizations can now do with data once it is collected.

The Old Model: Research as a Data Pipeline

For most of the industry’s history, a research engagement ran in one direction:

• A client has a question.
• A supplier designs a study, fields it, and delivers a report.
• The client’s team interprets the findings and, eventually, acts on some of them.

This model treated research as a project with a start and an end. Each study lived in its own silo. Insight generation and business decision-making were separate activities, connected only by a PDF and a debrief call.

That gap is now the industry’s biggest liability. Greenbook’s 2026 GRIT Insights Practice Report describes the core opportunity bluntly: AI is improving individual research projects, but the larger opportunity is “continuous intelligence” — closing the gap between studies, and reactivating insight that would otherwise sit dormant after a report is delivered.

What’s Breaking the Old Model

Three shifts, all measurable in the last 18 months, are pulling the industry away from the project-based model:

1. AI has moved from pilot to workflow

• 72% of insights buyers now use generative AI in at least one stage of a research project, up from 23% in 2023 (Greenbook GRIT 2025).
• 89–95% of researchers report using AI tools regularly or experimentally, per multiple 2026 industry surveys (Fuel Cycle, Qualtrics).
• High-performing insight suppliers now automate an average of 1 project functions using AI (Greenbook GRIT 2025).

2. The industry’s structure is shifting underneath suppliers

• Mid-size research firms (101–500 employees) are now leading the industry in revenue growth, capability expansion, and AI governance maturity.
• The largest suppliers are, per GRIT, three years into a deliberate move away from fieldwork execution and toward consulting.
• This is a direct signal about where margin is moving: away from raw data collection, toward interpretation and advisory.

Source: Greenbook, 2026 GRIT Insights Practice Report

3. “Decision intelligence” has become a category of its own

Decision intelligence — the discipline of embedding data, analytics, and AI directly into how organizations make and act on decisions — has grown from a niche analyst term into a market Gartner now tracks with its own Magic Quadrant (2026, Decision Intelligence Platforms). Analyst estimates of the category’s size vary widely by methodology, but every major forecast agrees on direction: sustained double-digit growth through the early 2030s, driven by enterprise demand for faster, evidence-based decisions.

The Shift: From Insights to Decision Intelligence

The practical difference between the two models is where the work ends:

• Data collection ends when the dataset is delivered.
• Insights ends when the report is delivered.
• Decision intelligence ends when a decision is made — and stays engaged to see whether it worked.

In practice, this looks like:

• Findings connected directly to a specific business decision, not a general topic area.
• Prior studies and dormant data reactivated automatically when a new, related question comes in, instead of every project starting from zero.
• Faster cycles between question and answer, driven by AI-assisted analysis, without cutting corners on sample quality or rigor.
• A continuous relationship with the client’s decision-making process, not a series of disconnected engagements.

The Governance Gap: The Industry’s Real Risk

The GRIT 2026 data includes a warning that deserves attention: the teams driving AI adoption fastest are often the least confident in how the associated risks are being managed. Confidence in AI risk management correlates directly with whether a team exceeds its business goals — governance is not a compliance afterthought, it is a performance variable.

For a supplier operating in regulated, multi-market environments, this matters directly:

• Panel quality and respondent verification standards cannot be relaxed in the name of AI-driven speed.
• AI-assisted analysis needs to be auditable and explainable to clients who will ultimately act on it.
• Data protection obligations (GDPR and equivalent regimes) apply with equal force whether a human or a model is processing the response.

What This Means for Research Providers

Providers built around fieldwork and panel access are not being displaced — they are being asked to extend further up the value chain. That means:

• Keep the foundation uncompromised. Verified panels, quality assurance, and multi-market reach remain the entry price. Decision intelligence built on unreliable data is just a faster route to a wrong decision.
• Close the loop after delivery. Build the capability to reconnect a new client question to relevant prior data, instead of treating every project as a blank page.
• Move the conversation from reports to decisions. Frame deliverables around the choice a client is trying to make, not only the topic being studied.
• Adopt AI where it earns trust, not just speed. The winners in GRIT’s data are the firms pairing AI adoption with visible governance, not the fastest adopters alone.

The Bottom Line

Data collection is no longer the differentiator — it is the baseline. The next phase of market research competition will be decided by who can turn that data into decisions, continuously and defensibly, without breaking the trust that verified, high-quality data collection was built on in the first place.

TURN DECISION INTELLIGENCE INTO A WORKING ADVANTAGE

IRB pairs verified data collection with custom reporting, advisory support, and a platform built to reconnect new questions to prior studies — so the insight your team already paid for keeps working.

Talk to IRB about turning your data into decision intelligence → www.irbureau.com

Sources: ESOMAR Global Market Research Report 2025; Greenbook 2026 GRIT Insights Practice Report; Greenbook 2025 GRIT Business & Innovation Report; Gartner Magic Quadrant for Decision Intelligence Platforms, 2026; Qualtrics Market Research Trends 2026; Fuel Cycle 2026 Market Research & Insights Trends Report.