Brian spotted an Insights Association poll asking one simple question: what should the insights industry’s biggest priority be in 2027? The four options were responsible use of AI, data quality and trust, proving the value of insights, and building next-gen talent. He sent it to Andrew, and they decided to just talk through all of it on the pod.

What followed was one of their more honest episodes in a while. They work through each priority on its own terms: what it actually means and whether the industry is actually equipped to tackle it. The responsible AI conversation turns into a sharp critique of conference culture, where nobody is getting on stage to talk about where AI breaks. The data quality section goes deep on why transparency is still the industry’s biggest structural gap. And the next-gen talent discussion raises a question nobody has a clean answer to: how do you build the next generation of researchers when the job itself is changing faster than any curriculum can track?

Key Takeaways:

• Why responsible AI use is meaningless without someone willing to get on stage and talk about where it fails

• Why data quality and trust are two different problems that keep getting bundled into one unanswerable priority

• What happens to the industry if a billion-dollar AI company acquires a major traditional research firm and applies VC growth expectations to it

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