In this quick-hit episode, Brian and Andrew debrief fresh off the conference circuit. Brian just landed from Washington, D.C. and comes in hot with takeaways from two back-to-back events: the Insights Association Ignite Data Quality and the GreenBook IIEX conference at the Ronald Reagan Building.

The first stop is data quality. The Global Data Quality Initiative unveiled its latest benchmarks at IA Ignite, and the numbers are hard to ignore. Post-survey removal rates of 46.5% in B2B and 30% in healthcare patient research paint a picture of an industry with serious work to do. Brian and Andrew also dig into findings from Verisol, who analyzed 50 million survey clicks and found that the biggest threats are not true bots, but humans armed with AI using VPNs and location spoofing to game incentives.

Then it's on to IIEX, where Brian played a little game with Andrew: name the companies. Out of roughly 30 AI companies with booths or presentations, Andrew recognized maybe two. Outset, Neurons, Dialogue AI, ConvoTrack, Riley AI, and dozens more are flooding the market, and Brian makes the case that nobody can keep up with all of them. The second mouse gets the cheese.

The episode closes with a plug for the Signal and Noise webinar on May 12th at 2 PM Eastern, where Brian and Andrew will go deeper on trends, AI, and everything they held back from this one.

Key Takeaways:

• Why the IA Data Quality Day may be the single most important gathering in the industry right now

• What the GDQ benchmark numbers actually reveal about the state of B2B and healthcare research sample

• Why the biggest fraud threat is not bots but humans with AI using proxies and spoofed locations

• The overwhelming volume of new AI companies entering the market and why being strategic matters more than being comprehensive

• Why the second mouse gets the cheese when it comes to evaluating early-stage AI tools

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In this episode, Brian and Andrew sit down with Mike Courtney, founder and principal of Aperio Insights and a practicing futurist. Mike brings a rare perspective to the Signal and Noise table, equal parts market researcher and strategic foresight practitioner.

Mike kicks things off with his "Land Man oil analogy," framing AI not as something happening to us but as a new drilling tool for human knowledge and intelligence. Just as early oil pioneers could not have imagined the thousands of uses petroleum would eventually unlock, we are likely only scratching the surface of what AI makes possible.

From there, the conversation goes deep on what futurists actually do, why exponential growth is so hard for humans to comprehend, and what the five to ten-year picture actually looks like.

Key Takeaways:

• Why the right frame for AI is not what it will do to us, but what we will be able to do with it

• How futurists think about possibility and change management rather than prediction

• The barbell effect coming for knowledge workers and why AI fluency is not optional

• Why lowering the floor does not automatically raise the ceiling

• What will be genuinely scarce and therefore valuable in an AI-abundant world

• Why the Michelangelo of market research will be the person who asks the right question, not the one who executes the fastest

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In this episode, Brian and Andrew sit down with Jase Bumgardner, a 25-year partner at The Link Group, a healthcare-focused market research consultancy. Jase leads complex, multi-year research work streams in neuroscience and new product planning, most notably alongside Eli Lilly, following products from early concept all the way through FDA approval and launch.

Jase brings a grounded, refreshingly calm perspective to a conversation the podcast usually approaches with a bit more urgency. Where Brian and Andrew often find themselves in the AI doom spiral, Jase comes in as a self-described pragmatist. He estimates AI has changed roughly 10 to 15 percent of what his team actually does day to day, and he sees it primarily as amplification, not replacement. The real disruption, in his view, is still mostly theoretical for firms doing elite, high-stakes consultative research.

The conversation covers how The Link Group made AI a formal priority years ago through a structured task force, a five-year strategic plan, and ongoing sentiment checks to see if it's actually moving the needle with clients. Jase also pushes back thoughtfully on the rush to adopt, citing data showing only 13 percent of brand-side clients are satisfied with generative AI results, and warns against what he calls the "great de-skilling," where reflexively outsourcing thinking to AI erodes the very capabilities that make great researchers irreplaceable.

Key Takeaways:

• How The Link Group built a deliberate, mission-aligned AI strategy rather than chasing every new tool

• Why the "any benefit" mindset around AI adoption is a problem, and how to think about net benefit instead

• The risk of de-skilling as reading, writing, and independent thinking get offloaded to AI tools

• Why market research is still fundamentally a talent and relationship game, and why that is not changing anytime soon

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• The Link Group