The (Unfortunate) New Face of Market Research: Plausibility

Two recent events have me thinking about AI and the problem of plausibility in market research.

First, a colleague narrated a story about the first market research company he worked for 20 years ago. The owner told him that research is always tentative and uncertain, and that all we really need to achieve in our results is plausibility. “If I could invent a plausible number generator, I would be rich!” he said. (Voilà! You have one now.)

Second, a neighbor narrated a story about her husband being skeptical that AI could be used to write songs. So she asked him to suggest a theme, which she submitted to an AI program to see what would happen. The result? “It was plausible,” she said.

Plausible is the perfect word to describe AI. In market research, it can, indeed, generate outputs that are plausible.

The problem is that if you are serious about research, you are not searching for plausible answers. You are searching for the truth. Some people find truth to be a scary word. But if you don’t believe in aiming for truth, then science and research are pointless.

At Versta Research we are emphatically not anti-AI. We are using it to help us in our work every day and in multiple ways. It is an amazing tool if used correctly. But we can tell you this: It simply can’t do work that requires thought and insight, which is at the core of what we do as researchers.

—Joe Hopper, Ph.D.