Crafting compelling narratives from AI-generated Insights

Hosted by Reineke Reitsma of Ipsos Netherlands, this roundtable explored the question: How can AI support insights professionals bringing insights to life and building compelling narratives? 

The discussion participants, most of whom had minimal experience with generative AI tools, acknowledged the growing potential of AI in storytelling. AI's storytelling is already evident in the numerous books co-authored by ChatGPT available on Amazon. The question arises: Can these AI capabilities be harnessed for market research? 

The participants concluded that the delivery of insights should essentially create memorable moments. They debated how AI could assist in crafting compelling, relevant and truthful narratives. The conversation yielded several possibilities: 

1. Customized Storytelling: AI could tailor narratives to suit specific audiences, tweaking the presentation deck, language, examples, cultural references, and even the delivery type. 

1. Visual and Cultural Modifications: AI tools such as Midjourney, runway.ai, Story.ai, Plotagon, Adobe, Canva, and Outlook's co-pilot, along with translation tools like Heygen and ChatGPT could modify the look and feel of the narrative to make it more audience-specific. 

The future of delivering insights will likely move beyond PowerPoint and Excel and explore a variety of options based on audience and topic. Ideas we came up with: 

• Short videos: Leveraging AI's translation capabilities or translation platforms, professionals could record in one language and have it translated for audiences in different languages. Also, the concept of a Digital ID (d-id) to present the narrative was discussed. 

• AR/VR: Augmented and virtual reality could bring stories to life and provide a more immersive experience. 

• Gaming: With the use of AI tools like ChatGPT, creating apps and games for presenting results becomes more feasible. We discussed ideas for a customer journey game, for instance. 

Knowledge platforms like 'Kim' from Heineken and 'Ada' from Pepsico provide access, searchability, and guidance to locate existing data within an organisation. However, they might lack context, reiterating the importance of senior insights professionals in providing interpretation and direction to the data. The human touch continues to be a competitive advantage, at least for now. 

In conclusion, the roundtable highlighted the importance of collaboration between client-side insights professionals and agencies on key factors like what matters, how results are utilised and distributed, and when and where AI is deployed in the process. As it’s early days for using AI in storytelling, it’s time to experiment, collaborate, and discover its true potential.