The Challenge

The client needed high-quality customer insight to inform brand, product, and channel decisions but faced the classic trade-off:

• Traditional research was slow and expensive

• Existing insight was fragmented across teams and agencies

• Decisions needed to be made quickly in a highly competitive market

• Leadership wanted insights that could be used, not static reports 

The challenge was to deliver actionable insight at speed, without sacrificing rigour or credibility.

The Goal

The objective was to rapidly create a shared, usable understanding of customers that could:

• Support strategic planning and prioritisation

• Inform brand positioning and growth opportunities

• Enable ongoing exploration and iteration by internal teams

• Reduce reliance on costly, one-off research cycles

The solution needed to be fast, collaborative, and designed for continuous use.

Our Approach

We designed and delivered a Rapid Insight Development approach, combining expert facilitation with AI-enabled tools.

The engagement was structured around a short, intensive cycle:

1. Insight Framing & Setup

• Consolidated existing knowledge, research, and market context

• Defined clear hypotheses and strategic questions

• Established guardrails for data use, privacy, and governance

This ensured speed without compromising integrity.

2. AI-Enabled Insight Generation

Using AI-enabled tools, we generated:

• Draft customer segments and personas

• Market and category hypotheses

• Customer journey and touchpoint insights

These “strawman” insights were deliberately designed to be iterated, tested, and refined, not accepted blindly.

3. Collaborative Working Sessions

Through facilitated working sessions, client teams:

• Challenged and refined insights in real time

• Explored implications for brand, product, and channels

• Identified gaps requiring further validation

This shifted insight development from a passive handover to an active, shared process.

The Solution

The engagement delivered a set of living insight assets, including:

• A small set of clearly defined customer personas

• Synthesised insights into motivations, barriers, and behaviours

• Directional views on customer journeys and growth opportunities

• Interactive, AI-enabled tools allowing teams to:

  • Explore personas dynamically

  • Test assumptions and scenarios

  • Use insights to support ongoing planning

Unlike traditional research reports, these outputs were designed to support continuous decision-making, not sit on a shelf.

Results & Impact

The rapid insight approach delivered several tangible benefits:

• Reduced time from question to insight from months to days

• Strong cross-functional alignment around customer understanding

• Increased confidence in early-stage strategic decisions

• A repeatable model for fast, low-cost insight generation

• A shift from static research outputs to interactive insight capability 

The organisation was able to move faster while maintaining a clear, customer-led perspective.

Key Takeaway

Insight is most valuable when it is usable, timely, and shared.

By combining expert judgment with AI-enabled tools, organisations can dramatically reduce the cost and time of insight development — while increasing its impact on real decisions.