5 Lessons from 35 Days Straight of Hot Yoga
This summer I did hot yoga every single day for 35 straight days.I went to Huntington Beach for a reset, and the daily practice was the centerpiece. All 35 days happened at Original Hot Yoga &...
View ArticleI Can Sense a Sea Change in CX and Insights
I have been out of the office a lot the last three weeks. A leadership offsite. Then visits with three of our longest standing clients in three different industries. It is the kind of stretch that...
View ArticleWhen Your CX Vendor is Fighting for Survival
Medallia has been handed back to its lenders. Roughly $3 billion in debt, $300 million a year in interest, and the equity is effectively gone. For enterprise CX leaders running programs on that...
View ArticleYour NPS Program Is Not About the Platform.
I have spent 25+ years running NPS and customer experience programs for enterprise companies. And I want to say something the CX industry has spent a lot of money to obscure.The platform is not the...
View ArticlePeopleMetrics Is Back
AI is dominating every business conversation right now.Boards are asking about it. Vendors are rebranding around it. Insights platforms are layering it into dashboards and calling it...
View ArticleIn the AI Era, Trust Is the Most Valuable Data Asset
Customer research data is some of the most sensitive information a company owns. It reveals where the business is weak, where customers are frustrated, where competitors are winning, and what should...
View ArticlePeopleMetrics Celebrates 25 Years!
Today, January 26th, 2026, PeopleMetrics turns 25.That is a milestone I never expected to reach, and one I am deeply grateful for.When I started this company, I had no idea if it would last 2 years,...
View ArticleLiving in Two Worlds: Leading an Insights Company Through Quiet Change
In my latest Substack, I ended with an observation that’s been sticking with me: it often feels like I’m living in two different worlds at the same time. I didn’t fully unpack it there, so this post is...
View ArticleBringing Insights to Life in the Age of AI
In this week’s AI Signal, I wrote about something I called “the snap.”It’s the moment when a technology stops progressing in a straight line and suddenly bends into a new shape. You don’t always notice...
View ArticleThree Years Was All It Took to Reshape Everything
Three Years Was All It TookThree years ago, a friend asked me if I had heard of something called ChatGPT. I had not. I clicked the link out of curiosity, typed a few prompts, and thought it was...
View ArticleIn the Age of AI Trust Becomes the Deciding Factor
A Poll About AGI Reveals Something BiggerIn this week’s AI Signal, I shared a simple poll that asked who people want to win the AGI race. What struck me was not the ranking but the message beneath it....
View ArticleWhy the Deck Is Dying (and What’s Replacing It)
Every insights professional knows the pattern. You spend weeks gathering data, hearing from customers, and shaping the story. Then you put it into a long PowerPoint because that’s the format everyone...
View ArticleThe Future of Insights Is Personal, Not Technological
As I put together this week’s AI Signal (https://seanmcdade.substack.com/p/seans-ai-signal-issue-17), something became clear that I didn’t fully appreciate until I stepped back and looked at all five...
View ArticleThe Future of Market Research Belongs to the Integrators
In this week’s AI Signal, I wrote about Google’s dominance in the AI value chain. It owns every layer of the stack: chips, cloud, models, and applications. That level of control creates a feedback loop...
View ArticleHumans Matter More Than Ever: Why AI Will Reinforce, Not Replace, Human Insight
AI in Market Research: A Breakthrough MomentA new study from PyMC Labs and Colgate stopped me in my tracks.Researchers found that GPT-4o and Gemini could predict consumer purchase intent with roughly...
View ArticleYou Have 12 Months: Why AI Will Redefine Market Research and Insights
In today’s research and customer experience world, the biggest shift isn’t automation or cheaper tools. It’s Amplified Intelligence. As Balaji Srinivasan frames it and I wrote about in the latest issue...
View ArticleFrom Skepticism to Transformation: The AX Curve in Market Research
Greg Isenberg recently compared the adoption of AI to the iPhone’s launch in 2007. At the time, most people dismissed the iPhone as too expensive, too limited, or simply unnecessary. Even Microsoft’s...
View ArticleThe Complete 1000x Market Researcher Series
IntroductionThis is the complete 1000x Market Research Series, all in one place for market researchers, insights leaders, and CX teams who want to stay ahead in the age of AI.The inspiration came from...
View ArticleThe 1000x Market Researcher Playbook
A practical operating system for the next 36 months of insights workThe insights world is changing fast. Legacy market research processes, like long decks, manual coding, and one-off reports, are...
View Article6 Proven Actions to Turn Your Insights Team Into a 1000x Machine
Audience: Market research, insights, and CX leadersProblem Solved: How to scale insight delivery, speed decision-making, and build repeatable value without new headcount or big budgets.The 1000x market...
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