Not just faster, better: Attest’s approach to AI in consumer research

You’ll be hard pressed to find a SaaS provider that isn’t talking – at great length and volume – about how their AI tools are pushing the boundaries, changing the game, shifting the paradigm… 

Do you believe any of it? We wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.

As well as working on our own suite of features and tools to improve your research process – more to come from us on that! – we want to set out our stall for AI in consumer research. 

This is how we’re approaching AI internally and externally, to give you an understanding of where we’re coming from, and where you can expect to see us go.

Why research needs a different standard for AI

Here’s why an all-guns-blazing approach to AI isn’t right for consumer research: you make winning or losing decisions based on your research outputs. 

There are definitely some huge developments in AI that we are excited to explore – synthetic audiences, for example. But because of those winning or losing decisions you make with your insights, a little caution around things like this isn’t a bad thing.

And so, more than ever, you need to know you’re making the right decisions – you need trust in the insights you’re looking at.

AI – when it’s poorly applied – can be misleading, inaccurate and can overlook crucial nuances in research outputs. Not to mention hallucinating and just plain making stuff up.

And that’s just not good enough.

Our principles for AI at Attest

Alright, so what does this actually mean when we apply it to our platform? How will Attest’s customers feel the benefit of a different standard for AI in consumer research?

Here’s how.

We won’t be building AI features because it’s possible – we’ll do it because it’s considered, tested and proven to be valuable to you. And we’ll do it in a way that maintains the human element of good consumer research. 

We’ve created a set of principles to help us create AI tools that genuinely add value, while instilling trust:

Human-centered design

We prioritise human well-being and autonomy in AI development, focusing on inclusivity, fairness, and responsiveness to user needs.

Transparency and explainability

We are committed to transparency in AI development. We provide comprehensive information and we ensure users can easily identify when they are interacting with AI systems.

Privacy and data governance

Our AI developments are centred on robust data protection and ethical data handling, focusing on implementing strong security measures and respecting user privacy.

Safety and security

We maintain a comprehensive security approach focused on secure infrastructure, proactive threat assessment and continuous system monitoring.

Scientific integrity and excellence

We design AI systems with a primary focus on performance and functionality, while maintaining high standards of data quality and methodological precision.

Accountability and responsible development

We are committed to regulatory compliance and responsible AI lifecycle planning, ensuring that human accountability remains central to technological advancement.

By making sure we adhere to these principles when thinking about AI, we know we’ll be able to offer you AI features you can trust, and that elevates your consumer research. 

How we build trustworthy AI

Attest’s Data Science team has dedicated itself to building, testing and refining models that have trust at their core. ‘Garbage in, garbage out’ is the adage they use to instill and maintain a high standard of quality for the data they work with, and that is translated to the Attest features you use.

We place a high importance on testing everything. All features go through several rigorous rounds of quality testing by the Product, Engineering and Customer teams, to make sure we trust the outputs. 

If we have any doubts about the quality of outputs, we simply won’t release the feature until we’ve adjusted our models to eliminate any doubt.

What Attest customers can expect

In the next few months we’re releasing features that bring AI into researchers’ day-to-day projects. 

These features will initially focus on the analysis and storytelling side of research: helping you get to your insights faster and to more effectively tell a compelling story with your results.

For example, we’re integrating AI into key moments of the analysis journey. From kicking off your analysis with some key findings and charts identified by AI, to getting summaries of your qualitative data, AI will assist you with some of the more time consuming analysis tasks and hopefully make your life a little bit easier. 

Looking further ahead, we will continue to integrate AI into the entire platform including survey design support, additional data quality checks and more granular data analysis. We see a path forward where AI can be your assistant throughout the research cycle, freeing you up to be a strategic partner to stakeholders across your organisation.

AI that’s thoughtful, tested, and built for trust

It’s all about trust. 

We’re passionate about maintaining a high quality of research here at Attest, and we’re not willing to compromise on that. 

This is why our considered, tested and built-for-trust approach is the right one for us – and for you! 

We know that you still need quality from your consumer research, and while we know that the pace of change that AI has triggered is unavoidable, our promise to you is that we’ll make sure you can continue trusting Attest for quality consumer insights.