Will AI bring an end to generalists in favour of super specialists? 

A Glimpse into the Future Role of the Market Insight Specialist 

By Hannah Mann, Founding Partner at Day One Strategy

I began my career as a market researcher in 1997, fresh out of university and full of enthusiasm for what the future might hold. Now, 27 years later, I’m still in the industry, reflecting on how much has changed—and how much more could change with the growing use of AI. 

Working as a researcher is an incredibly interesting and varied job. You get to work with some of the world’s biggest and most innovative brands, advising them on how to stay relevant and grow.  

Along the way you develop a real depth of knowledge about human behaviour and an almost unicorn like array of skills. You learn to be both analytical, yet also good at storytelling, have attention to detail but also able to see the big picture, organised yet creative. All this whilst simultaneously having to be both charismatic and strategic means you can likely turn your hand to anything, but it’s a big ask!  

We develop such diverse skills because we’re trained to handle every aspect of a project ourselves. We’re involved in pitching, writing, moderating, analysis, client servicing. You name it, we do it. This approach means we carry the ‘intelligence’ through every stage of a project, knowing our client’s research inside and out. There’s no question we can’t answer. 

But this “be all things to all people” approach has its downsides. It can burn people out as they spend large amount’s of time on tasks they find difficult or don’t enjoy. Unfortunately, this often leads to people leaving the industry in search of roles that allow them to focus more on their strengths. 

However, this may all be about to change. With Generative AI entering the scene are we researchers finally about to get some help? 

Imagine a world where AI isn’t just about efficiency, but about making us better at the things we struggle with. If writing isn’t your strong suit, you could use bespoke GPTs trained on your preferred style and tone to polish your text. If you’re terrible at formatting slides, a platform like Beautiful AI could make them look amazing with just a few clicks. Struggle with Excel? Use Copilot to help you analyse data without needing to be a spreadsheet expert. Suddenly, your weaknesses could become your strengths. 

Alternatively, we might stop doing the tasks we’re bad at altogether and focus only on what we’re good at. Imagine a company where one person is the master guide writer, another the master proposal writer, and a third does nothing but make draft reports look wonderful in PowerPoint. The big difference here is that each ‘person’ isn’t actually a real human at all but an AI expert designed specifically for each task. These AI ‘assistants,’ trained on past data and adept at understanding style, tone, language, and rules, could take a large chunk of the heavy lifting out of our work. They won’t do your job for you, but they can make it easier and less stressful. 

This shift might also change our jobs. Instead of doing the tasks ourselves, we could become experts in training AI models to perform them, learning how to get the best results from the technology. 

The great thing about this scenario is that it’s not a dream—it’s the reality we’re already living in. Personally, I’ve never been keen on late-night moderating. Many years ago I remember thinking how much my work life balance would improve if I didn’t have to do it anymore. Now, with AI-moderated qualitative research, that dream is starting to become true.