At X4 2025, Qualtrics announced several new features, all supported by AI. Two highlights were Experience Agents and Qualtrics Edge. Qualtrics Edge is a platform for research and insights professionals that combines AI, synthetic insights, and market research data to provide visibility into competitors and adjacent markets. The Edge Audiences feature allows users to access fully human, fully synthetic, or hybrid panels, which is a useful companion to support early phases of discovery work and generating hypotheses.
These are advancements that can streamline customer and experience research and broaden customer understanding, and using synthetic insights in addition to real human insights that are gained through traditional user research methods is a big step. We’ll see more AI-powered solutions like these emerge in the research space with advancements in AI.
What do advancements like these mean for experience research today and in the future? Here are my three takeaways:
AI-supported research is real and serious. A year ago, for many researchers, the idea of using AI to conduct research was an interesting nice-to-have, and for some it was out of the question due to concerns about privacy and biased data. But today, AI-supported research is real, and teams are actively seeking ways to understand the use cases and learn how to use AI in their research practices.
Researchers’ expectations are not fully met. AI-powered features to improve the research flow, such as AI-generated transcriptions and insight summaries, are now nearly table-stakes. However, in many cases researchers don’t find these features nuanced enough. They need more depth in the analysis, more guidance in decision-making, and more support in data visualization and storytelling, and these expectations will continue to increase.
Synthetic insights are still not a replacement for research with humans. Synthetic audiences are promising for early phases of experience research—like discovery work and generating hypothesis—especially when you’re targeting niche audiences or recruitment is difficult. But synthetic data is still not a replacement for research with real humans. Determining when to use synthetic insights and how to supplement research with real humans still requires research expertise, and success still depends on the ability to ask the right research questions and determine the right research problem.
If you are a Forrester client and would like to discuss this topic further or have questions about experience research landscape, set up a conversation with me.
