Quirk's NYC 2026 made one thing clear: AI is now part of the everyday research stack, and the conversation has moved to what teams actually do with it. Over two days, insights leaders shared how AI is reshaping qualitative work, claims prediction, and in-the-moment consumer tracking, and where human judgment still decides the outcome.
For consumer insights leaders, marketers, and innovation teams, the takeaways go beyond which tools to adopt. Brands need research they can act on, evidence that holds up when speed is easy but confidence is not, and clarity on what each AI tool can and cannot do.
Here are five observations that stood out from this year's event.
1. Consumer behavior is shifting toward products and experiences
A Gen Z panel explored how younger consumers are becoming more loyal to products and experiences than to traditional brand names. The discussion reflected a broader reality: cultural change is moving quickly, and brands need to understand those shifts before they show up in sales data. Consumer loyalty hasn't disappeared. It's simply being earned differently.
2. Insight activation over insight delivery
One session examined indulgence and premiumization in the treats aisle through a quali-quant approach. What stood out wasn't the methodology itself, but the expectation that research should directly influence innovation, design, and brand decisions. Insights are increasingly judged by what they change, not by how comprehensive the report is.
3. AI for claims prediction
One presentation demonstrated how AI is being used to model MaxDiff claims testing, reducing the need to repeatedly test similar claims and helping teams move stronger ideas into concept development more quickly. The approach still has limitations. It isn't tailored to individual shopper segments, and it isn't connected to packaging or real purchase behavior. That gap matters. A claim isn't experienced on a spreadsheet. It's experienced on a package, surrounded by competing products.
4. Human + AI collaboration in qual
Another session paired AI moderation with a searchable repository of previous qualitative studies, making it easier for teams to revisit past learning without starting from scratch. Video responses also played a central role, preserving emotional nuance alongside faster analysis.
AI is becoming part of qualitative research. The competitive advantage is increasingly coming from how organizations organize, retrieve, and apply what they've already learned.
5. Immersive, in-the-moment qual
A year-long consumer tracking program combined passive sensors with AI-enabled feedback collected during product use. Instead of asking consumers to remember what happened, researchers observed behavior as it happened. That reflects a broader move toward capturing behavior in context rather than relying on memory after the fact.
Where Behaviorally Fits Into These Shifts
The themes from Quirk's NYC 2026 line up closely with the direction Behaviorally continues to invest in. The throughline was that AI is most valuable when it is grounded in behavioral evidence and paired with human judgment, which is exactly the combination we build on: predictive AI tools backed by the largest behavioral database in the industry and decades of experience grounded in behavioral science.
The conference echoed the principles our products are built on. AI works best when it amplifies human expertise rather than replacing it, which is the foundation of Studio B and its three-step methodology of Humanize, Design, and Predict. Insights are being judged on business impact, not deliverables, and Claims.AI answers that by moving claims testing upstream, letting brands generate and validate on-pack claims in minutes with lift and loss diagnostics tied to predictive pack performance.
The event also underscored that CMIs are insights captains, weighing a range of tools to arrive confidently at the truth, and that clarity on what each tool can and cannot do is essential. Studio B and Claims.AI are built for exactly that: purpose-trained on behavioral data for defined decisions, ready to sit inside a broader toolkit rather than stretched to fit every question.
Quirk's NYC 2026 reinforced that the next chapter of consumer insights is not about more AI. It is about better decisions, supported by AI when it adds value and by human expertise and behavioral evidence where they matter most.
Contact us today to learn more.
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