Charles Allison
Insights Lead
Previously at
Based in London
In one line
15 years in insights, agency then client side
Goes deep on
- Ad testing
- Concept testing
- Product roadmap
Charles Allison ran customer experience research at Starbucks and market research at Instacart, was Conveo’s first tech client, and now builds the methods he wished he had.
Charles started agency side in London, in social media analytics and then traditional research, before eight years client side: at Sky, then at Starbucks in the United States, where he ran the customer experience programme across the US and Canada, twelve million surveys a year at its peak, and at Instacart, where he led market research and developed his own three-phase barriers methodology. Fifteen years in, the industry voted him one of the Insight250 Legends of 2026.
At Instacart he was told, like everyone, to start using AI. He talked to Conveo early, became its first tech client, and joined in 2025 to shape the roadmap from the inside. The first idea he brought was Conveo MaxDiff: a method he had used for some of the most impactful work of his career, which always walked away with half the answer. The version he conceived asks why.
He leads the Research Impact team and still prototypes features himself. He writes on the method in Greenbook and Insight Platforms, took MaxDiff to a webinar for the German research community, and presents it at IIeX West in San Francisco in October 2026 alongside a consumer insights lead from a global streaming service, and at MRMW Europe in Berlin the same month.
At home, just outside London, with three little boys and a little dog.
Further reading
- Beyond the ranking: a new MaxDiff that captures the why · Greenbook · 2026 ↗
- Why a single word can flip a MaxDiff result · Insight Platforms ↗
- Researchers ask qual or quant. Stakeholders want outcomes · Insight Platforms ↗
- How did you get there? Charles Allison · Significant Insights · 2025 ↗
- Conveo launches MaxDiff with AI qual questions · Research Live · 2026 ↗
- Quant methods, qual depth: what happens when MaxDiff can ask · IIeX West 2026 · 2026 ↗
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Transcribed from the film and lightly edited for length and clarity. Click a timestamp to hear that answer.
My name is Charles. I live just outside London in the UK. I've been in the insights world 15 years now.
I was at Instacart and it was like, start using AI for stuff. Everyone's getting this directive, and the person who's giving it doesn't really know what they mean either. It was like, okay, now it's time to start looking at AI and research. I landed on AI moderation because I loved the methodology. I loved the fact that it was still a human.
I talked to Conveo, to Hendrik, pretty early on in the Conveo story. I think I was the first tech client. Used the platform, loved the platform. Whenever I was on a call with them, I would see the product had improved by a seemingly impossible amount in a short period, but I was still like, oh, and what about this? And have you thought about that? And I could see them writing the stuff down. And I was like, actually, maybe if I joined you, then I could do this from the inside and really help drive impact.
I spent a long time yesterday basically creating a prototype of a new feature. It meant that I was late to the beach, because I was sat in my hotel room, looked at the clock and went, oh Jesus. I was able to build this prototype of exactly how I wanted it, and now that's going to go to engineering and actually be built. I don't think there are many companies where researchers are building stuff like that.
They wanted to run a study where they actually saw how people are coping in the home. The trouble we have is that people clean the house before we come, even if we tell them please don't. They said this was the first time they actually saw a dirty home, because with our methodology you just click a link and you're there. Now I'm in your home. Seeing their faces, these researchers, as they saw that, the unlock, this is what they've been craving. Those little wow moments, you get a real buzz from it. And it's still happening all the time.
At home, obviously, with my three little boys and a little dog. That takes up a lot of my time, that's my priority. The other place you might find me is at the Emirates Stadium. I'm a big Arsenal fan. It's family, Arsenal, everything else. This comes underneath that.
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On conveo.ai
Articles · 2026Why we rebuilt price sensitivity testing around the reason, not just the number
Articles · 2026Limitations of Quantitative Research: What the Numbers Can't Tell You- Changelog · 2026Test price sensitivity and ask why in the same interview
Articles · 2026Consumer Intelligence Research: Methods and Use Cases
Articles · 2026Customer Insights Research: Methods to Understand Customer Needs
Articles · 2026How to Choose the Right Survey Data Analysis Method
Getting to know Charles.
“At home with my three little boys and a little dog. That takes up a lot of my time, that's my priority. The other place you might find me is at the Emirates Stadium. I'm a big Arsenal fan. It's family, Arsenal, everything else.”
“At home with my three little boys and a little dog. That takes up a lot of my time, that's my priority. The other place you might find me is at the Emirates Stadium. I'm a big Arsenal fan. It's family, Arsenal, everything else.”
In Charles’s words
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