AI that feels different

There’s a moment in the testimonial video that sticks with me. Pieter, one of three speakers you’ll meet at the top of this post, describes watching a Conveo demo for the first time. He’d seen plenty of AI before, but this felt different: the assistant wasn’t just following a script; it was asking nuanced follow‑ups that actually deepened the conversation. “I was very surprised,” he says, because the AI made it easy to ask precise questions and get accurate, reliable answers. Edit a video

That reaction is the throughline of this story. In the video, you’ll hear from three levels of a modern marketing organization:

• Louis, the CMO (and company co‑founder) who cares about speed, decisions, and outcomes.

• Levi, the Head of CMI, who cares about scale, process, and comparability.

• Pieter, a CMI Manager on the research front line, who cares about validity, depth, and stakeholder confidence.

Each of them came to Conveo with different priorities. Each of them found something decisive. And together, they paint a picture of what consumer understanding looks like when AI is built for researchers and for the leaders who rely on them.

Before you read on, hit play on the video. Then come back, because this article is your field guide to what they’re describing and how you can apply it to your own team. Edit a video

Three Viewpoints, One North Star: Consumer Truth

Consumer truth is the operational “north star” for the team in the video. You hear it again and again: staying close to customers, listening for the why, and turning those signals into momentum.

Pieter frames it as a researcher’s holy grail: giving stakeholders as much confidence as possible in the results they’re seeingrobust enough to rely on, yet deep enough to explain “why.” That balance has traditionally meant running separate qual and quant streams, then trying to stitch them together under deadline pressure. With Conveo, he says, they now get both: “robustness on one hand” and “depth on the other,” in a way that yields credible answers to the whyquickly. Edit a video

Levi echoes that from a leadership angle. He positions Conveo “in the middle” between qual and quant: you get the why of qualitative interviewing and also a sense of how big that why isa practical bridge between exploration and sizing. That framing becomes important later when we talk about decision speed and de‑risking. Edit a video

Louis, as CMO, is blunt about the stakes: when the organization argues from opinions, velocity dies; when it argues from evidence, velocity compounds. He calls the CMI team his “special forces,” because when he’s unsure, he asks them to “fix my problem with consumer insights.” Conveo helps that team deliver fast, at scale, with the receipts. Edit a video

What Changed: From Projects to an Always‑On Consumer Channel

The first visible change is temporal: research moves from episodic projects to an always‑on channel.

• Parallel interviewing at scale. Louis points to “a hundred interviews at the same moment.” That’s not hyperbole; the system runs interviews concurrently, so fieldwork compresses from weeks to hours. In fast categories like FMCG, he says, speed isn’t nice‑to‑haveit’s survival. Edit a video

• Instant availability. Pieter notes that “everyone can just take the interview whenever they want” because the AI is always available. There’s no time‑boxing to a moderator’s calendar or a facility’s schedule. That availability does two things: it nudges more stakeholders to engage with raw consumer voice, and it reduces the burden on the CMI team to orchestrate every session. Edit a video

• Global reach by default. Levi calls out language agility: Conveo “can easily talk all the languages that you need,” so adding markets no longer multiplies complexity. Scaling to multiple regions is a feature, not a phase, and analysis still rolls up coherently. Edit a video

When you combine those elementsparallelization, 24/7 availability, multilingual reachyou stop thinking of “doing a qual study” and start thinking of “opening a line” to the consumer that you can tap whenever decisions demand it. That reframing is powerful.

The Method: How “Qual‑Depth + Quant‑Confidence” Happens

Traditional qual is great at uncovering nuance, but light on representativeness. Traditional quant is the opposite: strong on sizing, weaker on context. The team in the video didn’t want to choose. They wanted both…without doubling the time and budget.

Here’s how they got there:

1. AI‑assisted interview design. Levi mentions that the assistant is “with you from the start,” including guide creation. That up‑front rigor matters: it primes the AI interviewer to probe meaningfully, not mechanically, and to steer into clarifying follow‑ups that a human moderator would be proud of. Edit a video

2. Nuanced, adaptive follow‑ups. This is the moment that surprised Pieter: the interviewer doesn’t just ask the next question on a listit listens to what respondents say, then drills in. That’s where new insight comes from: recognizing an unexpected angle and chasing it down in the same session. Edit a video

3. Breadth you can trust. Because the interviews scale to dozens or hundreds quickly, you get a more robust base to draw from. Pieter notes how teams often challenge small‑N qual as “not representative,” then demand a separate validation phase; with Conveo, you can build enough N to sidestep that skepticismwhile keeping the depth. Edit a video

4. Automated analysis that respects nuance. Levi points to automatic synthesis as a workload and time‑saver. The point isn’t to replace the researcher’s judgmentit’s to clear the grunt work so the expert can focus on what the patterns mean. Edit a video

5. A video layer that boosts credibility. Pieter admires the “video concept” because it quickly surfaces key moments from interviews. Seeing and hearing consumers in their own words collapses debate: it’s hard to argue with a clip that perfectly illustrates a barrier, a need, or a delight. He calls out how that visual evidence builds internal credibility. Edit a video

The Organizational Payoff: Fewer Debates, Better Decisions

If you run a business unit or brand team, you know the meeting I’m about to describe. Seven opinions, one decision needed, and a clock that ran out yesterday. Here’s how Conveo changes that tape:

• Evidence beats opinions. Louis says it plainly: everyone has an opinionmanagers, product owners, even the CMO. The fix is to “listen very closely to our consumer,” not to the loudest voice in the room. Conveo turns that into a reflex: before you lock, you check the consumer channel. Edit a video

• Stakeholders feel closer to the consumer. Pieter describes a shift in how teams work together: they “share the data one‑on‑one, talk them through, ask questions to Conveo.” The effect is proximity; commercial partners feel they’re in the room with the consumer, which improves buy‑in and reduces second‑guessing later. Edit a video

• Speed scales across the pipeline. Louis connects the dots: it’s not just doing more interviews; it’s analyzing the influx quickly so decisions can move. When insight keeps up with the pace of creative and product work, rework shrinks. In categories where speed is oxygen, that matters. Edit a video

A Packaging Test Story: When “The Why” Changes the “What”

One example from the video captures the qual‑quant bridge in action. In a packaging test, the team first ran an exploratory qualitative study, then followed with a quantitative read. The surprising part? They ultimately chose a different route than the one suggested by the initial quant signalbecause the deeper why pointed to a better path. In other words, they refused to be trapped by a surface metric; they let explanations drive choices. Edit a video

This is a subtle point but an important one. Numbers tell you what happened in a test. Conversations tell you why. When the two align, greatconfidence soars. When they diverge, the “why” often reveals a latent constraint or hidden driver that the numbers alone flatten. Conveo’s contribution is to make that reconciliation fast, repeatable, and shareable.

Why Respondents Open Up More to AI (Yes, Really)

Pieter observes something that seasoned moderators know all too well: social desirability bias. When respondents sense they’re talking to someone from “company X, Y, Z,” even if they aren’t, they gravitate toward polite answers. He’s seeing less of that with AIpeople come across as “more real.” Edit a video

Why might that be?

• Perceived neutrality. An AI interviewer feels less judgmental than a human, especially on sensitive topics. Respondents don’t worry as much about disappointing or offending a person.

• Predictable pacing. The assistant doesn’t rush or wander; it follows up methodically. That predictability creates safer space.

• Anonymity cues. Even when you’re not truly anonymous, the format feels more like a private diary entry than a performance for a stranger.

Whatever the combination, the effect is practical: richer, more candid language to analyzeand stronger signals to act on. If stakeholder credibility is the “last mile” of insights, the authenticity of that raw input is the “first mile.” Conveo strengthens both.

The Five Speed Levers Conveo Gives a Modern CMI Team

If you’re considering Conveo for your own organization, here are the five levers you’ll feel earliest:

1. Setup in minutes, not weeks. Start with an objective, spin up an interview guide with the assistant, and launch. Levi calls out how the assistant helps craft guides from the start, and how analysis “happens automatically” on the back end. That erases the worst waiting in the process. Edit a video

2. Massively parallel fieldwork. Louis’ “hundred interviews at the same moment” line isn’t just about volume. It’s about cycle time: you learn in one or two sleeps what used to take a quarter. Edit a video

3. Multilingual by default. Levi’s team spans regions; Conveo simply speaks the languages those projects require. You don’t get a complexity tax for being global. Edit a video

4. Instant, navigable synthesis. Auto‑analysis means your experts spend their time interpreting, not copy‑pasting. That’s how you squeeze more projects into the same headcount without squeezing quality.

5. Shareable evidence that persuades. Pieter’s praise for the video featuresurfacing “key moments” rapidlyis more than convenience. Clips, quotes, and structured themes shorten the path from “what did we hear?” to “here’s what we’re going to do.” Edit a video

How Conveo Changes Stakeholder Rituals (So Your Insights Actually Land)

It’s common to celebrate methodological wins and then watch them wilt in a boardroom. The team in the video avoids that fate by changing small rituals around how insights are consumed:

• Briefings become co‑navigation. Instead of emailing PDFs, the CMI team “shares the data one‑on‑one, talks stakeholders through it, and asks questions to Conveo live.” That dialogic format invites curiosity and makes it easy to chase emerging questions. Edit a video

• Clips replace anecdotes. The video layer reduces reliance on second‑hand retellings (“a shopper said…”) and lets decision‑makers hear it themselves. It’s a gentle but effective way to lower defensiveness when the data contradicts a pet idea. Edit a video

• The “consumer check” becomes routine. Louis describes a world where the CMO doesn’t hope the team is right; he checksand does so quickly. Over time, that ritual shifts culture: evidence becomes the default, not the exception. Edit a video

Not a ReplacementA Reliable Middle

One of the most sophisticated claims in the video is also one of the most grounded: Conveo is “neither a full replacement for qual” nor for quant. It’s the reliable middlethe connective tissue that gives you the why at scale and lets you approximate size without losing the story. That’s how Pieter can say the tool helps him deliver the “full picture,” and how Levi can place it squarely between qual and quant without pretending it’s the only tool you’ll ever need. Edit a video

Practically, that looks like:

• Running discovery interviews at scale to map motivations, frictions, and language.

• Using those themes to shape hypotheses, creative territories, or product directions.

• Doing a faster‑than‑traditional check on how pervasive those themes appear in a broader sample.

• Bringing the most representative consumer voices directly into stakeholder rooms via video.

• Choosing the right moments to commission a full quant validation (when the stakes or the ambiguity warrant it).

The middle isn’t a compromise; it’s a multiplier. You don’t blunt qual or quantyou make both hit harder.

A Note on Researcher Joy (Yes, That’s Allowed)

Levi’s comment about time and workload probably made a lot of researchers nod: “It really helps to speed up things, and to give the more boring things to the machine.” That’s not laziness; it’s craft. When your day is less about formatting and more about framing, you do your best thinking. And when your best thinking lands with stakeholders who feel close to the consumer, you remember why you wanted to do insights work in the first place. Edit a video

Pieter’s experience adds another kind of joy: the credibility high. When cross‑functional partners can see the interviews, ask real‑time questions, and understand consumers “way, way better,” the CMI team gets the outcome it cravesdecisions that move because the evidence moved people. Edit a video

For CMOs: The AI Mandate (and Why It’s Practical, Not Theoretical)

Louis closes with a provocation every CMO should sit with: if you’re not in the AI transformation within five years, your organization will be slow. That isn’t about buzzwords; it’s about throughput. If your competitors can run dozens of interviews in parallel, synthesize findings overnight, and feed those into product and comms cycles continuously, your quarterly cadence is no longer an edgeit’s a drag. Edit a video

The upside is immediate:

• Faster de‑risking of creative and product bets.

• Less thrash in cross‑functional meetings (because video receipts quiet opinions).

• A rhythm of “ask, learn, act” that composes into brand momentum.

The shift isn’t just technological; it’s managerial. You give your CMI leaders the mandate and the means to be those “special forces”and you measure them not by slide counts, but by the speed and quality of the decisions they enable. Edit a video

Getting Started: A Simple Playbook You Can Run Next Week

If this is your first time considering Conveo (or your first time socializing it internally), here’s a lightweight plan that reflects what you heard in the video:

1. Pick one decision that’s stuck. A packaging choice. A message ladder dispute. A feature prioritization argument. Anything with high talk/low movement.

2. Frame two to three decision hypotheses. Keep them crisp and falsifiable (e.g., “Value‑first claims drive more consideration than taste‑first in Market X”).

3. Launch a rapid interview sprint. Use Conveo to generate a guide keyed to those hypotheses. Field 60–100 interviews across your key segments. Let the assistant probe for the why.

4. Use the video layer to bring doubters along. Bookmark 6–10 clipstwo per hypothesisthat clearly show the consumer’s language. Build a 20‑minute briefing around those clips.

5. Size the themes inside Conveo. Pull the automated synthesis to see pattern prevalence (and confidence) without committing to a full quant survey yet.

6. Make a call. If you’re aligned and the evidence is strong, move. If you still see ambiguity on a high‑stakes question, trigger a targeted quant validationor iterate the interview sprint with sharper probes.

7. Institutionalize the “consumer check.” Add a line item to your decision templates: “What did the consumer sayand where can I watch it?” That single question will shift culture more than any slide ever could.

That’s it. You don’t need a steering committee to try this. You need a decision that matters and a team willing to listen.

Final Word: The Middle That Moves You Forward

If you only remember one thing from the video and this post, make it this: Conveo gives you the middle you’ve been missingthe place where depth meets breadth, where interviews meet scale, and where stakeholders meet the consumer in a format that persuades.

Pieter found precision and credibility in how the AI asks and follows up. Levi found time back and scale across languages, with analysis that keeps pace. Louis found a way to replace opinion ping‑pong with evidence and speedthe kind that compounds across a business. Edit a video

Together, they remind us that “consumer‑centric” isn’t a slogan. It’s a system. And with Conveo, it’s a system you can actually runtoday, on real decisions, with proof you can watch.

Watch the three‑voice testimonial at the top of this page. Then pick your stuck decision and open the line to your consumer. We’re ready when you are. Edit a video

Editor’s note: Quotes and examples in this article are drawn from the testimonial video featuring Louis (CMO), Levi (Head of CMI), and Pieter (CMI Manager). Their experiences and language informed every section of this post.