October 2026

Good Work Matters

October 20, 2026 0

Drawing on qualitative interviews with 25 insights professionals across agencies and client organizations, Marco Rovagnati explores what good work looks like in the age of AI. He introduces a clear framework for “intentional cognition,” outlining how thinking can be deliberately distributed between humans and AI without compromising rigor or judgment. Readers will gain practical guidance on where AI adds value in the research process—and where human interpretation, synthesis, and accountability must remain central. Marco also highlights emerging practices that protect deep thinking, strengthen ownership, and prevent the erosion of insight quality in AI-supported workflows. […]

How AI-Driven Emotion Metrics Uncover Hidden Truths in Qualitative Research

October 20, 2026 0

Authors Moses and Hartzbech delve into a Superbowl advertising case study to explore how AI tools such as voice analysis and facial expression analysis offer a new frontier by capturing deeper, often unspoken emotional responses and turn them into measurable insights. By combining traditional conversations with these “semi-quantitative” data layers, researchers can uncover more compelling patterns of consumer sentiment, revealing truths that sometimes go beyond and sometimes contradict what participants say, ultimately delivering richer insights. […]

Listening Deeper: Mental Models, Interior Cognition, and Why Qualitative IS Science

October 20, 2026 0

Qualitative researcher and author Indi Young has spent decades developing a methodology that goes beyond opinions and behaviors to uncover what she calls interior cognition—the inner thinking, emotional reactions, and personal rules that actually drive human decision-making. In this interview, Young explains how her Mental Model diagrams help organizations recognize the full range of human thinking styles and design for all of them, not just the majority. She shares concrete examples from studies on clothing care and home cooking that reveal how surface-level research leads organizations to build the wrong things—and how listening at greater depth changes not just the research, but the decisions that follow. […]