MUMBAI: The Market Research Society of India (MRSI) turned the spotlight on AI's game-changing role in insights at a buzzing webinar on 25 June, titled The Future is AI: Revolutionising Market Research for Tomorrow’s Insights.

Hosted by independent marketing measurement consultant Sunder Muthuraman, the session featured ,  Ipsos India practice lead – innovation, understanding & client advisory  India Krishnendu Dutta, and ITC Foods, vice president – head of insights and analytics  Vara Prasad.

Vara Prasad kicked things off by breaking down AI’s impact on market research—declaring traditional methods slow and outdated in a world that demands speed and scalability. At ITC Foods, AI now does the heavy lifting: mining public data, analysing sentiment in customer care calls, listening to social chatter for trend-spotting, and even crafting product concepts. With predictive dashboards in the mix, AI is also helping sharpen business strategy. “AI needs context to shine,” said Prasad, adding that when trained right, it can evolve into a serious innovation engine.

Krishnendu Dutta pulled back the curtain on Ipsos’s “Facto” — a bespoke AI sandbox built for researchers to safely explore new tools without the chaos. From translation to topline extraction and even creating agentic personas that replace dusty old segmentation decks, Facto is bringing AI to daily insight generation. Ipsos is also tapping into synthetic data to stretch the life and depth of small datasets.

But both speakers hit pause on the hype with a key reminder: AI won’t replace humans—it’ll supercharge them. Whether it’s prompt engineering, model training or strategic activation, the real magic still needs a human touch.

To watch the full session, click here.