Beyond the Breakfast Photo: Why Real Insight Still Needs Humans in the Age of AI

The first wave: digital research and the illusion of closeness

When online research platforms arrived, the insight world changed overnight. Suddenly we could “meet” people without leaving the office. We could gather responses fast. We could see products in use. We could watch behaviours play out in real life, at least on screen.

It felt like progress. And it was.

But we learned something quickly: speed doesn’t equal depth. If the brief isn’t sharp, the output isn’t either. You don’t get strategy from vague questions. You get one-word answers. You get surface-level photos. You get the famous “breakfast shot” when what you actually needed was a route to the next big idea.

That lesson still stands. And it matters even more now.

The new wave: AI-powered insight is incredible. And incomplete

AI-fuelled insight is a step-change. We can now reach dozens of people across markets in days, not weeks. We can spot patterns faster. We can translate signals into direction with real momentum.

Used well, AI helps us:

• Move at commercial speed without sacrificing rigour
• Scale understanding across audiences and geographies
• Turn raw input into clear strategic options faster than ever

For senior marketers, that’s not a nice-to-have. It’s a competitive advantage.

But there’s a catch.

AI can accelerate what we ask. It can’t replace why it matters.

Empathy is not a “soft skill”. It’s the difference between data and truth

At Brand Potential, we’ve spent years inside the worlds of real people, because the most valuable insight is rarely delivered as a neat sentence.

It’s felt.

It’s the broadband customer who isn’t just buying “fast Wi-Fi”, but buying stability, safety, and a future in a new country. You understand that differently when you’ve been in their room, heard the street outside, and seen the pressure they’re under. The insight isn’t the quote. It’s the context around it.

It’s the parent navigating baby nutrition in a culture where women don’t hold decision-making power. That single shift changes everything: who you talk to, what you say, what you sell, and how you show up responsibly. AI can summarise responses. But it can’t fully sense power dynamics unless we design for it and interpret it with care.

This is the work. This is where brands stop guessing.

The real job now: design the right prompts, then interpret through a human lens

Technology should move us on. We believe that. We build with it. We use it.

But real insight still depends on the humans behind the system, how we structure the learning, how we listen, and how we turn signals into strategy that actually travels inside an organisation.

That means we treat AI as an engine, not an oracle.

• Start with clear strategic intent (what decision are we trying to unlock?)
• Design better prompts and methodologies to avoid shallow output
• Read what’s said and what’s not said the gaps are often the gold
• Pressure-test findings through culture, context, and commercial reality
• Polish raw nuggets into action positioning, innovation territories, messaging, comms, experience

Because insight that can’t be used isn’t insight. It’s content.

What this means for future-focused brands

If you lead brand, growth, or innovation, here’s the opportunity: don’t choose between human craft and machine scale. Fuse them.

The shift isn’t “AI replaces researchers.” The shift is: brands that connect what others keep apart will outpace the market, brand +performance, creativity + commerce, human stories + AI-powered scale.

A few watch-outs we see repeatedly:

• Speed without strategy creates noise, not direction
• Volume without empathy creates bias you can’t see
• Automation without judgement creates answers that feel right—but land wrong

The brands that win will be the ones that use AI to get closer to people, not further away from them.

We’re excited by what AI makes possible. We’re also clear-eyed about what it can’t do on its own.

Real insight isn’t just capturing what people share. It’s earning it.Interpreting it. And turning it into something meaningful and commercial, without losing the human truth at the centre.

At Brand Potential, we help future-focused brands turn AI-powered research into human-first strategy, fusing human ingenuity + machine intelligence to unlock new routes to growth.
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We are Brand Potential. Partners in Possibility.