AI Heroes: Jenna Beglin - Episode 18
From AI Heroes by ONE Strategy Studio
January 19, 2026 · 42 min · Season 1 · Episode 18
About this episode
Jenna Beglin discusses the role of AI in consumer research, emphasizing the importance of unlocking new possibilities rather than just improving speed and efficiency.
Beyond Speed and Efficiency - When AI Should Unlock New Possibilities When Jenna Beglin evaluates AI tools for consumer research, she's not asking "can this make us faster?" She's asking a more fundamental question: "Does this enable us to do something we couldn't do before?" As a research and insights leader focusing on tech, Jenna has developed a clear philosophy about AI's role in research—one that challenges the prevailing obsession with productivity gains. In this conversation, Jenna shares her perspective on why AI should be additive rather than simply time-saving. She discusses the tension between what she calls "the race to mediocrity"—where AI produces passable but uninspired work—and the genuine breakthroughs that happen when technology unlocks entirely new capabilities. From synthetic respondents to AI-moderated interviews, Jenna walks through her evaluation framework: Is this meaningfully better? Does this give us insights we couldn't access before? This episode offers a practitioner's framework for thinking about AI adoption—focused not on doing the same things faster, but on genuinely expanding what's possible in consumer insights work.
People in this episode
Guest: Jenna Beglin
Topics covered
- AI in consumer research
- productivity vs. innovation
- evaluation framework for AI tools
- additive AI
- insights generation
- synthetic respondents
- AI-moderated interviews
Keywords
- AI tools
- consumer insights
- research philosophy
- productivity gains
- evaluation framework
- new capabilities
- mediocrity
- breakthroughs
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: ONE Strategy Studio
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