It’s not every day you get to feel the future landing in the present, but that’s exactly what it felt like this past June. We were thrilled to have the opportunity to sponsor “The Future of Insight” event. Bringing together our friends and partners at ESOMAR and the Marketing Society of Ireland created a real buzz, a sense that we are all on the cusp of something extraordinary.
Luke Reaper, CEO, Ipsos B&A, Ireland, took to the stage for the panel discussion on AI. With over 30 years of experience in the Irish market, Luke was ideally suited to navigate the conversation on how AI will reshape marketing and research. The discussion was electric, touching on the critical issues of our time: how we blend the best of AI with uniquely human judgment, how we nurture talent in this new landscape, and, crucially, how we handle the ethics of data and insight in a world where “truth” itself can be synthesized.
At Ipsos B&A, we don’t just see this as a technological shift; we see it as a philosophical one. We have been championing our “HI+AI” approach, which stands for Human Intelligence + Artificial Intelligence. This isn’t just a catchy slogan; it’s our core belief that the true power of this technology is only unlocked when it’s paired with the irreplaceable strengths of our people. Our Human Intelligence is the bedrock – it’s the decades of expertise, creativity, ethical rigor, and sheer curiosity that our teams bring to the table every single day.
To empower our people, we’ve invested heavily in building our own proprietary generative AI platform, Ipsos Facto (with multiple LLMs feeding in – not just one). We are incredibly proud of what our teams have created. It’s a secure, sandboxed environment where our researchers can innovate freely, knowing that both our clients’ data and our own intellectual property are completely protected. This allows us to deliver insights that are not only faster but are also safer and deeply grounded in a real-world, human context. In fact, with over 75% of our employees across 86 countries now certified in Generative AI through our in-house training, we’ve seen adoption of Ipsos Facto soar to over 90%.
In this rapidly changing environment, we know that trust is our most valuable currency. That’s why we’ve established a clear framework for how we evaluate and deploy any AI tool: Truth, Transparency, and Trust. We are relentless in assessing the accuracy of AI outputs (Truth), we demand clarity in how these systems work (Transparency), and we ensure every solution aligns with our unwavering commitment to ethics and data protection (Trust). This isn’t just about good governance; it’s about being the trusted advisor our clients need us to be.
We are actively in the labs, so to speak, constantly testing and building custom solutions that will define the next generation of knowledge curation and innovation. Our role is to be more than just a service provider; it is to be a partner, helping our clients cut through the noise, understand the real risks, and seize the incredible opportunities that AI presents. We are already using AI, and our AI solutions, in an ethical and meaningful way for Innovation projects, and creative assessment. Interactive Persona Bots have been rolled out for Segment discrimination, etc.
The age of AI is no longer on the horizon; it is here, reshaping our industry at a breathtaking pace. We are confident that by leading with a human-centric approach, we can and will shape this transformation in the right way. The future is ours to create.
