Responsible use of AI in insights: Striking the right balance between innovation and integrity

This article is part of a year-long, 25th anniversary series that explores where insight communities have been, where they are today, and the market and customer trends that are shaping where C Space is taking insight communities next.

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly transforming the market research landscape and has reshaped how researchers interact with data. What once took weeks can now happen in minutes, with machines driving speed, scale and precision. The technology, tools and services powered by AI have shaken things up, but with this power comes responsibility. As our industry embraces innovation, we must also set new standards for integrity, transparency and ethical use of AI in market research. The future of insights depends on striking that delicate balance. Here is Escalent Group’s ( Escalent, C Space and Hall & Partners) point of view on responsible use of AI in research.

AI is redefining the possibilities in market research by doing the heavy lifting across every stage of the insights journey. From processing unstructured text, multi-media content and passively collected data to identifying patterns, emotions and emerging themes, AI brings speed and clarity to complex datasets. It doesn’t just analyze information – it helps generate new hypotheses, uncover hidden narratives and surface meaningful insights that might otherwise stay buried. AI can go even a step further by tailoring and fine-tuning findings into personalized reports and recommendations, making insights more relevant and actionable for different audiences.

But the real magic lies in its ability to scale without sacrificing quality while promoting fairness and potentially reducing human bias. At Escalent Group, consistent with our obsession to deliver greater value to our clients, we are tapping into these capabilities to elevate our research and our client offerings across our internal research processes as well as our external facing C Space Insight Community and Enlyta applications. Features like community activity summaries, multi-document synthesis, theme and sentiment analysis, data-mining chatbots and semantic search are deeply AI-driven and play a key role in delivering elevated value to our customers. With AI, we are not just getting more information – we are getting smarter, sharper and more timely insights.

The ‘black box’ nature of some AI algorithms makes it hard to understand how conclusions are reached, reducing transparency or accountability for insights with no human-AI collaboration.

As powerful as AI is, using it without human oversight is risky business. When AI models are trained on skewed or incomplete data, they can produce biased outcomes that reinforce stereotypes or miss key segments entirely. The “black box” nature of some algorithms makes it hard to understand how conclusions are reached, leaving little room for transparency or accountability for insights with no human-AI collaboration. Without human review, there is a real danger of misinterpreting findings or drawing flawed conclusions.

Privacy and compliance also come into play, especially when dealing with sensitive or personal data. AI hallucinations – generating insights that sound convincing but are factually incorrect – are a growing concern. In 2023, for example, two NY attorneys were fined for using fictitious case citations generated by ChatGPT. According to the court ruling, the lawyers failed to verify the authenticity of the AI-generated content, underscoring the necessity for attorneys to ensure the accuracy of their filings regardless of the tools employed. Similarly, insight professionals need to be confident in data quality. Machines still lack the nuance, empathy and critical thinking that human researchers bring to the table.

To address these challenges, Escalent Group is proactively embedding human expertise at every step, investing in explainable AI and applying rigorous quality checks and ethical standards. We refer to it as “Human-Guided AI,” and our goal is to ensure that innovation never comes at the cost of quality.

The real power of AI in research comes when it’s paired thoughtfully with human expertise. Keeping a human in the loop ensures that insights are interpreted with context, empathy and critical thinking – things AI alone cannot replicate. Embracing explainable AI builds trust, allowing researchers to understand and validate how conclusions are drawn. Establishing clear ethical guidelines and responsible oversight avoids misuse and ensure fairness. AI should be seen as a tool for augmentation, not replacement and just like people, AI needs ongoing training to stay accurate and relevant. When humans and machines work together, the result is smarter, safer and more sustainable insights.

Co-pilot, not auto-pilot, is the mantra at Escalent Group. We engage with various stakeholders to build the right AI-human balance across all our core processes and deploy hybrid models that leverage AI’s speed and scale while keeping human insight and judgment front and center. A powerful example of this AI-human balance – and the importance of continuous training – is our recently launched BeSci x AI™, a proprietary model that blends behavioral science, AI and human expertise to motivate behavior change. Our subject matter experts and the technology team worked hand in hand to refine and train the model, achieving over 98% accuracy. Yet, every output still undergoes human review to catch anomalies, and any inaccuracies are fed back into the system to continuously enhance the model’s performance. 
  

As AI continues to evolve, it is clear that it’s playing a defining role in shaping the future of market research. But its true potential lies not in replacing human intelligence, but in amplifying it. By embedding ethics, transparency and human judgment into every step of the AI journey, we can unlock deeper, more meaningful insights without compromising on trust. The most impactful insights will come from solutions that balance innovation with accountability. Simply put, responsible AI is not just a best practice – it is the future of our industry.

At Escalent Group, we are leading the charge in using AI responsibly to transform market research with integrity, transparency and human intelligence at its core. Contact us to learn more about our hands-on approach and AI-focused solutions.