The Curiosity Current: A Market Research Podcast

Consumer insights teams have more data and technology at their disposal than ever before, but connecting that information to meaningful business decisions remains a challenge. In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Patricia Descamps, Consumer Marketplace and Insights Co-Pilot Lead at Nestlé, explores how AI can help break down research silos, why human curiosity remains essential to meaningful insights, and how organizations can move beyond static consumer profiles to understand changing needs and motivations. She also shares how insights teams can become proactive strategic partners who challenge assumptions, connect the dots and create lasting business value.

Understanding consumer behavior requires looking beyond what people say and predicting what they will do. In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Lucio Lamberti, Full Professor at Politecnico di Milano, explores how the brain uses expectations to interpret the world, why breaking those expectations can create learning and engagement, and what neuroscience can reveal that traditional market research may miss. He also examines how AI could reshape consumer decision-making, why contradictory research findings deserve closer attention, and why understanding the reasons behind behavior matters more than prediction alone.

Great research requires looking beyond what people say to understand why they behave the way they do. In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Kelli Rempel, Principal and Founder of Hana Worldwide, discusses why qualitative research remains valuable in an increasingly automated industry, how body language and hesitation reveal insights that data alone can miss, and why researchers should maintain a healthy skepticism toward AI. She also shares how she uses AI to manage the administrative side of her consultancy while keeping human judgment at the center of her research.

AI is changing market research across the board, but getting work done faster and cheaper doesn't always mean getting better insights. In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Alisa Hamilton, founder of Harvest Insights, discusses where AI adds value, why quality remains a challenge, and how researchers can use new tools without losing the human judgment that good research depends on. She also explores how AI is making advanced methodologies more accessible, why the next generation of researchers needs a broader set of skills, and why curiosity will continue to play a central role in understanding human behaviour.

Great research starts with the business question and lets the right methodology follow. In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Aksel Bedikyan, Founder and CEO of OhGee Insights, discusses why researchers should stay methodology-agnostic, how mixed methods can reveal insights hidden in conflicting data, and why existing data should be explored before new research is commissioned. He also shares how generative AI is changing the research process by taking on time-consuming analytical work and why curiosity, human judgment, and client relationships become even more important as automation improves.

What does it take to build a research function that leadership actually uses? In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Stephanie Vance and Molly Strawn-Carreño sit down with David Yin, a fractional research and marketing leader who has built insights functions at companies including Fitbit, Ancestry, Eventbrite, and Poshmark. David shares how researchers can build credibility from scratch, understand stakeholder problems, earn leadership buy-in, translate research data into business action, and turn consumer insights into competitive advantage.

For the longest time, market research has been focused on understanding why people behave the way they do. But what happens after the insight is delivered? In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Stephanie and Molly sit down with Will Leach, founder and CEO of Mindstate Group, to explore why researchers need to move beyond insights and recommendations and become behavioral designers who can help brands turn research into action. Will breaks down the say-do gap, explains why behavioral science and data analytics need to work together, and introduces the Mind State Activation Blueprint, a framework designed to translate behavioral research into practical creative and marketing guidance. He also shares how AI uncovered a cultural pattern across 19 different studies that he would have missed by looking at research one project at a time.

Data quality isn’t just about better fraud detection or securing individual surveys. In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Stephanie Vance and Jonathan sit down with Karine Pepin to explore what’s actually broken in the research ecosystem and why fixing one survey at a time can only go so far. Karine shares how researchers can establish their own “ground truth,” interpret conflicting fraud signals, question unrealistic sample claims, and rethink what’s possible when researching hard-to-reach audiences.

Turning research insights into action requires more than delivering good data. In this episode of The Curiosity Current, strategic foresight practitioner Mina McBride explores how researchers can build credibility, understand the political and emotional realities of their clients, and prepare stakeholders to act on uncomfortable insights. She also shares how foresight can help researchers distinguish meaningful signals from noise, take calculated career risks and stay focused on the work that matters most.

Researching products that do not yet exist requires looking beyond the technology itself. In this episode of The Curiosity Current, UX Research Leader and Product Strategy Advisor, Preeti Talwai, discusses how researchers can anchor early-stage work in enduring human needs, separate the experience from the technology enabling it, and measure impact even when a product never launches. She also shares why AI should augment rather than shortcut qualitative research and how teams can move faster by changing the way insights are delivered.