Stop Burning Ad Budgets: What a 20-Year Market Research Veteran Wants Every Brand to Know About AI Consumer Intelligence
There's a particular kind of panic that sets into a boardroom when someone finally says out loud what everyone's been thinking: the data we're using to make decisions is already old news by the time it reaches us. That's roughly where my conversation with Ankesh Saxena started. Ankesh isn't a hype merchant. He's spent two decades inside some of the most respected names in market research — Gallup, Lucid, Survey Sampling International — before co-founding Acutus AI Insights in August 2024. He's a certified ESOMAR and MRSI member, hosts The Collaborative Canvas Podcast, and runs The Research Pulse Wire. In other words, this is someone who has watched the research industry from the inside for a long time, and he's telling us the old playbook is done. I wanted to unpack why — and what brands should actually do about it. The Old Way Was Already Broken Here's the uncomfortable truth Ankesh laid out early in our conversation: traditional consumer...