How Gen AI is Revolutionizing Market Research with Stefano Puntoni

GenAI should not just help market research teams do today’s work faster, but enable “better things,” including work they are not doing at all. Stefano Puntoni, Co-Director, Wharton Human-AI Research, The Wharton School, joins host Nick Graham, Founder, Vertemis, to reframe GenAI’s impact from productivity to effectiveness, discussing just-in-time insights, synthetic data as an alternative to “no data,” and reaching hard-to-sample or restricted audiences. They unpack misconceptions and identity threat, argue for hybrid approaches combining human and synthetic inputs, and distinguish synthetic personas from true digital twins built from data on real individuals. The conversation also covers where LLMs may excel (belief estimation) versus struggle (context-driven experimental responses), how leaders can map use cases across the research workflow, and why accessible coding agents may accelerate experimentation.

00:00 Beyond Efficiency

00:20 Podcast Welcome

01:38 Reframing Gen AI Value

03:10 New Research Frontiers

08:43 Better Things Not Faster

09:55 Synthetic Data Basics

10:45 Misconceptions And Threats

15:47 When To Trust Synthetic

21:22 Digital Twins Explained

24:23 Can AI Model Humans

31:57 What Leaders Should Do

36:12 Staying Sane And Ahead

38:07 Future Developments

39:20 Key Takeaways Outro

Insights & Innovators Podcast from MRII | Hosted by The Greenbook Podcast Network

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