What about AI?
AI is a tool. The researcher stays accountable.
AI is part of how we work, but the research is never handed over to it. Our researchers stay accountable for the interpretation and the insight.
Our approach
Fit for purpose, never by default
For every study we start from the client need, then bring in the tools that suit it. We have chosen not to become an "AI-native" agency that pushes every brief through the same engine.
In our qual work
Framework research to sharpen discussion guides, working through large volumes of transcripts, connecting groups, interviews and diaries, and challenging our first read by looking for contradictory evidence.
In our quant work
Background research for proposals, faster questionnaire development, customised open-ended coding, early reads on interim data, Day 1 top-lines, and forecasting through a specialist data-science partnership.
Where we hold back
Reporting and storytelling stay with us. AI-written reports tend to flatten the insight and lose the person behind it, so the narrative and recommendations remain researcher-led.
What it means for our clients
More time on what matters
More capacity per researcher
We can interrogate more information, across more sources.
Faster to field and first insight
Quicker questionnaires and earlier reads on the data.
More time on the so what
Less time on mechanical steps, more on what to do next.
Africa-calibrated
Scales, benchmarks and models tuned to how African consumers respond.
No additional cost
Built into how we work, without compromising quality.
Traceable
Every output links back to its source and to the researcher accountable for it.
“AI is there to amplify the best method for the objective, not to become the method.”
Africa-calibrated tools
Tuned to how African consumers actually respond
Each tool draws on our own database of South African and African consumer responses, rather than global norms that do not reflect our markets.
Beyond Scales™
Recalibrates rating scales and penalties to how South African and African consumers use them, for more sensitive analysis of what is really troubling consumers.
Beyond Rapid™
Rapid product, concept and pack tests, and rapid mini-U&As. Built for early screening and for brands without the budget for large-scale studies.
Beyond Demand™
A need-states and demand spaces modelling tool that cuts analysis time from weeks to days, still directed by modellers with 25 years of experience.
Day 1 top-line reports
Fieldwork usually runs over the weekend, and the top-line report is on your desk on Monday.
In-the-moment WhatsApp surveys and diaries
During the week a product is placed, we capture first experience rather than relying only on recall. Photos and video bring the consumer closer to the client team.
Beyond Savant™ (beta)
An analytics, data visualisation and dashboarding platform calibrated to African markets through our senior team's experience on the continent.
Where we are heading
AI keeps changing, so we keep building
A fractional CTO team helps us grow our AI capacity and keep up with new platforms and models. Everything we build is sandboxed, data-secure and model-agnostic.
Nothing AI-related goes into a client's work by default. We bring it in where it helps the best method, and the human researcher and the human being researched stay at the heart.