Leading trends stemming from AI’s growth in competitive/market intelligence as observed at Quirks Chicago 2026
- Patrick Sturgeon
- May 14
- 2 min read
I had the opportunity to attend the Quirk's Event Chicago in April 2026, which once again brought together leaders from across the consumer insights and market research industries on both the client and vendor sides.
While AI has been a growing topic across nearly every conference circuit, this event felt like a true inflection point. It became increasingly clear that AI is fundamentally reshaping competitive and market intelligence functions—moving organizations away from largely manual monitoring and reactive reporting toward always-on, automated intelligence ecosystems.
Several key themes emerged throughout the event:
AI adoption is accelerating: While many organizations were initially cautious due to privacy, governance, and control concerns, more Fortune 500 companies are now actively embracing AI through internally firewalled tools and formalized usage policies. In many cases, adoption is no longer optional—it is increasingly expected.
Monitoring and secondary research are becoming automated: Entire business models once centered on manual secondary research and monitoring are rapidly evolving. Modern platforms now continuously track competitor launches, messaging, pricing, digital experiences, and market activity, while layering in automated analysis to help practitioners focus on implications and strategic impact rather than raw collection.
Speed expectations have fundamentally changed: Executive teams increasingly expect near real-time intelligence rather than quarterly or periodic updates. As a result, CI teams are evolving into continuous intelligence operations that regularly support sales, product, strategy, and executive leadership with actionable insights.
Verification and trust are emerging as critical challenges: As AI takes on a larger role in gathering and interpreting information, concerns around accuracy, hallucination risk, and unsupported conclusions are growing. Many organizations emphasized the need for stronger validation processes and evidence-backed findings before intelligence is trusted at the leadership level.
Primary intelligence is becoming even more valuable: AI has dramatically increased access to public-facing information and analysis, making secondary intelligence more commoditized. As a result, organizations seeking differentiated insight are increasingly turning to primary intelligence—direct conversations with customers, competitors, former employees, partners, and industry experts—to uncover perspectives unavailable through public channels. When combined with AI-driven analysis, these insights create more robust findings and greater confidence in strategic decision-making.
The organizations seeing the greatest success today are combining:
Automated AI monitoring
Human-led analysis and validation
Primary intelligence gathering
Tight integration with sales, product, and executive decision-making
In practice, AI is not replacing competitive intelligence professionals. Instead, it is transforming the role—from information gatherer to strategic interpreter, validator, and orchestrator of intelligence.
