At a glance
The best research happens in the moment: a consumer reacting before they can rationalize. Capturing it used to take one researcher, one home, one conversation at a time. Ninth Seat now captures it in every home. At once. Again and again.
Quality and speed at the same time: qual's oldest trade-off
A 40-year agency. Clients like Unilever, Haleon, and Mondelez. And a tension every researcher knows.
Ninth Seat is an independent research consultancy that has spent four decades helping some of the world's biggest consumer brands understand what people do and why they do it. Qualitative and quantitative research, sensory, innovation, packaging, product. Heeru Sajnani, Senior Research Director, describes herself as a qualitative researcher through and through: "It's in my blood. Twenty years of knowing what people do and why they do it. From being in consumers' homes to being in consumers' lives in the moment."
That's the standard. And it collides with the reality of agency work.
"The hardest thing is always producing something that's good quality in a short space of time. Those two things, simultaneously, is hard to manage."
— Nina Hancocks, Research Manager, Ninth Seat
For an agency whose reputation is rigor ("making sure there's no stone left unturned, in who you're talking to, what you're asking, and what you're recommending after that," as Associate Director Dafydd Jones puts it), the trade-off was never acceptable. It was just unavoidable.
In-the-moment moderation used to require a researcher in the room
You can't replay a first reaction, and no team can be everywhere at once.
"The only time you could do in-the-moment moderation was if I was doing it myself, in someone's home, in a focus group. Coming back two hours later on a community platform, some people have forgotten their point."
— Dafydd Jones
Meet enough respondents at scale, get the data back in time, and something gives. That was the wall Ninth Seat kept pushing against.
Ninth Seat chose Conveo for the ethos, and trusts it because it truly works
The bar: use AI smartly, never for the sake of it. The proof: a first project in languages the team didn't speak, results needed fast.
The question was whether a platform could keep research human. The evaluation started before any feature comparison.
"You don't want to deploy AI for the sake of it. We use AI smartly. We know what we are doing in our projects. We don't want to mess with the data."
— Heeru Sajnani, Senior Research Director, Ninth Seat
"We wanted to be very sure the ethos really matched," Heeru says. "That it keeps the human side of research, and it's not automation."
The team had trialed another platform; it wasn't producing the video content they wanted. Conveo cleared the ethos test, and two things made the decision practical. First, control: "The fact that you can amend the discussion guide throughout the session made it kind of risk-free," Nina says. Second, a first project that left no room for hand-holding: "Our first project was in Thailand and Vietnam, markets where we didn't speak the language. We needed the results quickly, and we needed something like Conveo to be able to do the moderation."
Dafydd's verdict is the shortest: "The key thing that separates Conveo from all those other platforms is that it works. It truly does work."
Four conversations with one consumer, from first unboxing to formed habit
Ninth Seat is always building its toolkit. Conveo made it possible to moderate in the moment, in every home at once.
The study that shows what this unlocks: a cleaning product, placed in consumers' homes. First touchpoint, a live unboxing.
"Consumers did a live unboxing for us: seeing it for the first time, giving us their first reactions. They don't have time to rationalize. It's all emotive, in that moment."
— Dafydd Jones
Then consumers used the product on their own time for three or four days, and came back: what changed since the first time we spoke? "It was really interesting, hearing them say, 'This product changed because I realized I needed to use it like this.'"
Four interactions with the same consumer, each one probed live by an AI moderator, each one building on the last. "Continuously building on your knowledge of that consumer. Not just what they tell you, but how you're asking it too."
Touchpoint 1: Live unboxing. First reactions, all emotive, in that moment.
Touchpoints 2–3: Real use at home over three to four days, probed live: what changed?
Touchpoint 4: The formed habit. Each conversation builds on the last.
× every home: Simultaneously, in every home in the study.
No traditional method covers that ground. An in-home visit captures one moment. A community captures recall. This captures the whole arc of adoption, live.
"You see them physically doing it. Testing the product for the first time, being probed right there. That unfiltered, in-the-moment reaction is possibly the most powerful thing you can see as a researcher."
— Dafydd Jones
Analysis becomes instant, and the data becomes something you can talk to
Fieldwork time turns into thinking time. Outputs turn into reels.
"The analysis is instantaneous," Dafydd says. "I can synthesize all the data, and also go back and watch every interview. You can ask it to challenge your own thinking. It's so easy to talk to your data."
The outputs changed too. "Nothing like I've come across before," Nina says. "A reel, in just a short amount of time, with captions embedded." The net effect, as Heeru puts it: the same craft now delivers twice the insights.
The work won over the very researchers who ran it
The doubt was depth: could an AI moderator match 40 years of qual craft? The studies proved it could.
"When we started with Conveo, there was a fair bit of skepticism, whether it would provide the same kind of depth that we need," Heeru says.
"The person I had to convince was me."
— Dafydd Jones
The proof came through the work. And it's showing up where it matters most for an agency:
The skepticism resolved, Conveo went into Ninth Seat's proposals. Clients responded:
"In the last five months, we've definitely won more projects based on featuring Conveo in our proposals, matching the AI requirements of our clients."
— Nina Hancocks
A partnership that protects the depth of qual and pushes the technology forward
Not treated as vendors. Building the toolkit together.
"What do I like most about Conveo? The partnership," Heeru says. "We're not treated just as vendors. They respond immediately." Dafydd sees a team with "ears very receptive to ideas that can help them grow, and help us answer objectives in the way that we need to."
Heeru is direct about her recommendation: "I would really recommend Conveo because it retains the human side of research. Despite being an AI platform, it ensures the human side of research stays."
"The agencies that win from here are the ones who retain the depth of qualitative research, the human side, whilst going further in technology."
— Heeru Sajnani
