New year, new insights! With hiring kicking off, budgets locked in, and strategic ambition running high, here’s what we’re seeing across the research and insight world as 2026 gets underway.

🧭 Quick Pulse: What We’re Hearing

💬 “Our 2026 planning is all about moving faster, even if it has to be with fewer resources.”

💬 “We’re under pressure to use existing data before commissioning more.”

💬 “AI is everywhere – we need senior people who are excited about it and can envision how AI can help evolve our proposition.”

Insight leaders are walking the tightrope between automation and authenticity, with speed and stakeholder trust top of mind.

🔍 The Big Trend: Agile Insight Goes “Always-On”

The ‘project-based’ model of insight is being replaced by rolling feedback loops. Instead of standalone surveys or communities, brands are investing in “always-on” listening across social, CRM, product reviews and micro-surveys.

🛒 Example:Superdrug launched a continuous feedback engine across its app, triggering 1–2 question check-ins at key interaction points. This data is visualised weekly, feeding directly into stock, promo and comms decisions.

2026 will reward teams who treat insight not as a moment, but as a muscle.

🛠 Method Spotlight: Mobile-First Qual

With screen fatigue setting in and diary studies losing steam, mobile-native qual is seeing a resurgence… but smarter this time.

📱 Short-form video tasks  🎤 Voice note prompts  🧠 “In-the-moment” reflections over traditional recall

📦 Example:Gü Desserts used voice diaries via WhatsApp to capture how consumers felt about indulgence and guilt post-holidays. The real, unscripted tone uncovered emotional drivers that traditional surveys missed, feeding into packaging updates launching this quarter.

👀 Brand to Watch: IKEA

IKEA launched a co-ideation lab within its loyalty app where customers help design new storage solutions. Members submit photos of real-life space problems, vote on ideas, and get early product drops.

It’s research, community, loyalty and co-creation all in one.

📈 Results:

– 20K+ submissions in first 6 weeks

– 3 product ideas now in prototype

– 15% increase in app engagement

📊 Smart Stat

🧠 Only 42% of brand teams say they regularly activate insights within 10 days of collection.(Source: GreenBook Q4 Report)

In 2026, speed to action will be vital to businesses more than ever.

Written by Francis Nicholson – Expert in hiring Data, Insight and Strategy talent for the Age of AI

New Year, New Leverage Skills, stories & signals shaping tomorrow’s teams

Editor’s Note — A Different Kind of Optimism

January often arrives carrying an expectation of clarity. Clear goals. Clear plans. Clear answers about what comes next. But after three months exploring retrainability, AI literacy, and human advantage, one thing feels increasingly clear precisely because the noise has settled: the market hasn’t become easier…but it has become more legible.

2026 doesn’t offer certainty, but it does offer leverage. Not leverage in the sense of control, but leverage in the ability to move forward without waiting for perfect information. For strategists, that leverage shows up in quieter ways: clearer framing, faster synthesis, and the confidence to shape decisions earlier rather than simply respond to them. AI has normalised experimentation.

Organisations now understand where automation helps and where it doesn’t.

And human judgment (influence, interpretation, credibility) is being re-evaluated not as a nice to have, but as a differentiator. The people who will gain ground this year aren’t waiting for confidence to arrive. They’re building strategic momentum.

Market Signal — The Fog Is Thinning

Employers are clearer about what they don’t need: endless deck production, generic analysis, output without ownership. And more explicit about what they do need: people who can frame problems, connect insight to action, and move decisions forward under uncertainty. AI hasn’t removed ambiguity but it has shortened the distance between question and answer.

Signal: the premium is moving from information to interpretation.

Frontline: “I Stopped Waiting for Clarity”

One senior strategist explained: “I realised I was waiting for the market to tell me what version of my role would survive. The moment I stopped waiting and started shaping it myself, things moved.” Instead of chasing certainty, she began making small, visible moves, owning ambiguous briefs, reframing insights into clear choices, and stepping into conversations earlier. Momentum followed not because the environment changed, but because her position within it did.

Sharp Skill: Strategic Momentum

Strategic momentum isn’t about speed or confidence. It’s the ability to move forward without full certainty while increasing future options. It means making directional moves, showing learning in progress, and positioning yourself where thinking is shaped, not just delivered. In 2026, momentum isn’t loud…it compounds quietly.

Case in Point: The Quiet Repositioning

A long-tenured insight lead didn’t change role, title, or employer. Instead, she reframed how her value showed up — shifting from insight delivery to decision framing and using AI outputs as conversation starters, not endpoints. No reinvention. Just leverage.

Closing Thought

2026 won’t reward certainty. It will reward those willing to move before certainty arrives. Strategic momentum isn’t about confidence.

It’s about creating options before you need them.

Written by Francis Nicholson – Expert in hiring Data, Insight and Strategy talent for the Age of AI

Theme: Human Advantage — The Skills AI Still Can’t Touch

Skills, stories & signals shaping tomorrow’s teams

✍️ Editor’s Note: Human Advantage in the Age of AI

After two months exploring retrainability and AI literacy, one truth keeps surfacing in conversations with strategists, researchers, and insight leaders:

Everyone is experimenting with AI. BUT confidence, influence, judgment and human connection are stealing the spotlight again.

As more teams adopt AI tools, the differentiators are shifting back to the timeless skills that have always made people great at this work. Not the data. Not the decks. But the human advantage: how we influence, interpret, challenge, empathise and persuade.

This month, we’re putting the spotlight firmly on the skills AI still can’t touch and why they matter more than ever.

📈 Market Signal — The Human Premium Is Rising

Across strategy, insight and data, job descriptions are quietly evolving.

Not with louder demands for technical expertise — but with stronger emphasis on:

• Stakeholder influence
• Judgment under uncertainty
• Commercial intuition
• Cultural insight
• Emotional intelligence and facilitation

Why? Because AI is excellent at generating options…..but it’s terrible at deciding which one matters.

Companies are learning (quickly) that AI can accelerate thinking, but only humans can:

• Read a political room
• Land a narrative
• Challenge a client
• Sense when something “looks right” but is wrong

Signals in the market:

• Senior hires are increasingly being assessed on cross-functional credibility and influence.
• Early-career roles are favouring candidates who show “learning agility” and communication impact over specific tools.
• Leadership teams are describing “judgment” as their biggest hiring gap not technical ability.

Takeaway: In 2026, the most valuable skills won’t be the ones AI replaces…they’ll be the ones AI amplifies.

🗣 Frontline — “My job isn’t insight anymore… it’s interpretation.”

A senior insight lead at a global tech company put it simply:

“AI gave us more answers than we know what to do with. My team’s value is now deciding which answers actually matter.”

She described how AI has sped up early-stage synthesis so much that her team’s role has shifted upstream:

• Framing the strategic question
• Connecting insight to business realities
• Coaching stakeholders out of the wrong rabbit holes

The job isn’t collecting or even analysing anymore….it’s guiding decisions through complexity.

And that requires honesty, confidence, diplomacy, and narrative skill. Not an algorithm.

🔧 Sharp Skill — Judgment Under Uncertainty

If Edition 2 was about “thinking with AI,” Edition 3 is about the human supplement; the things only you can do.

This month’s Sharp Skill: Judgment.

AI can tell you what might be true. Only humans can tell you what’s useful.

To strengthen judgment in an AI-heavy workflow:

1. Interrogate the edges — where does the model’s logic break?
2. Sense-check with context — what would a real customer actually say?
3. Pressure test assumptions — what’s the commercial trade-off?
4. Read the politics — what is the organisation ready to hear?

Takeaway: Judgment is becoming the new strategy superpower.

🌟 Case in Point — The Strategist Who Became “The Translator”

One brand strategist we spoke to was initially worried that AI tools were “doing her job.”

Six months later, she’s in a bigger role.

Why? Because she became the person who could:

• Challenge AI outputs
• Spot patterns AI missed
• Land a narrative senior leaders could act on
• Build confidence in recommendations

Her director described her new value perfectly:

“The machines gave us speed. She gave us clarity.”

The human advantage isn’t disappearing, it’s being revalued.

✂️ Closing Thought

AI is getting faster. Teams are getting leaner. And the work is getting louder.

The people who will rise next aren’t the most technical — they’re the ones who bring the human edge: influence, intuition, honesty, and courage.

👉 The future belongs to those who combine AI acceleration with human advantage.