The Future of Insight?

Hi ChatGPT what is the future of insight?
Crafting a meaningful insight that makes you look at a problem in a new way requires effort and time. Rarely is an insight gifted to you. But the pressure is on for faster, cheaper, deeper, game-changing insights. Insights budgets are being cut, with more focus on always-on automated insights from AI and algorithms.
Will insights functions be replaced by AI that can gather consumer insights more cheaply and efficiently?
Will human creativity in insights become obsolete as AI is better at parsing data and patterns?
Will the demand for faster insights lead to superficial, low-quality outputs?
Let’s pause to contemplate the implications of these questions. The thought that we could increasingly outsource “insighting” to AI is extremely concerning. As AI reliance grows, we must confront the possibility, critical thinking may suffer from over-trusting AI outputs. Divergent thinking and envisioning multiple approaches may languish without exercise. In short there is a risk of humans losing our aptitude for the very skills that make us human.
So, what is the answer? The path forward is unclear, but proactive steps are needed.
“Connecting the dots” is a term often used to explain the insight process. But this oversimplifies the craft of insights, relegating it to scanning for signals and pattern recognition. Stuff that AI is great at. But “insighting” is more nuanced than this. It goes beyond connecting the dots to exploring the space between the dots. And here’s where the human qualities of curiosity, intuition, empathy, seeking diversity of perspectives and meaning-making are key.
·       AI cannot make abstract connections and leap to non-obvious insights.
·       AI amplifies existing biases if the data inputs are limited. Diversity in human teams is key to get better insights.
·       AI and algorithms on their own lack the empathy, and contextual understanding needed for holistic consumer insights.
The future of insight will undoubtedly involve more use of data, AI and tech. But human creativity remains crucial. The key is finding the right balance between human talent and AI augmentation and figuring out how best to do this.
In the interests of research, I asked ChatGPT what it thought. Here’s what it had to say:
“AI cannot replicate the creative synthesis, meaning-making and abstraction of human insights teams. But thoughtfully combined, human talent and AI technology can achieve deeper, faster insights with greater business impact. An integrated approach is imperative. The key is ongoing collaboration, with humans directing the strategy and leveraging AI as an amplifier, not driver, of the insights process. With tight feedback loops, they can continually improve the speed, depth and business impact of insights together”
Scarily wise.