AI creates better and easier analytics. But it can’t make a final product that excites your business.

Editor’s note: Michael Callero is founder, The Big Blue Crayon, Minneapolis, and an adjunct professor at Northwestern University. 

Let’s rewind a bit with a Christmas story. When I was little my parents had only one rule when it came to gifts. No gifts with “some assembly required.” The last thing my parents wanted to do on Christmas Eve was wrestle their way through piles of parts and convoluted assembly steps. And then one year each of us kids received a nightstand as a gift. Why had they given the same Christmas present to each of their five children? And why a nightstand?

Their answer was IKEA. Originally, they’d intended a nightstand only for my brother. But the assembly instructions were easy and sort of fun. The simplicity of it was intoxicating – so much better than the old way of doing things that my parents had to do it again right away. It made them doubly frustrated to consider the old slow and complex way of doing things. 

Our industry is experiencing something similar with AI. Classic researchers remember when their job was to wrestle their way through piles of data and convoluted analytical steps. In many ways, AI is beginning to make data synthesis refreshingly easy and sort of fun. And this is starting to cause some panic. If AI does all this for us, what are we researchers left to do?

AI can IKEA-up your analytics, but it still needs you. It creates lists of possible insights but doesn’t know what’s insightful. AI will help you make sense of information, creating simple and direct summaries. But AI has no idea how your leaders think, what problems they’re trying to solve and what analysis is going to drive their actions. AI has no idea how to influence your business. But you do.

Will AI replace insights?

AI isn’t taking our jobs. It’s reminding insights professionals what our role really is.

If you think you’re here to generate insights, then you’ll soon find AI does it faster and better than you can. But, if you think you’re here to use insights to influence your business to make great decisions, then AI is a tool for a job that only you can perform.

I teach a user research class. Last year, we had alums join as guest speakers. One student asked whether they should be using AI in the class. The guest speaker, without hesitation, replied, “Oh, yes. Just have AI write all your reports.”

That’s not quite what you want to hear as a professor. What kind of a class would this be if I encouraged the students to use AI in that way? Wouldn’t that be like encouraging them to cheat? 

Later, I had to admit the guest speaker had a point. AI could help speed up the routine portions of their assignments. This would free up time for them to understand our underlying concepts and to customize their work to be influential. AI is a helpful tool in my course, but AI alone would fail it. I require my students to be influential and truly understand how I think and make decisions. That demands a level of comprehension and customization that AI can’t self-navigate.

Translating insights and influencing business decisions

Should you use AI in your research? Absolutely. Your competitors are. Your consumers expect you to. Your organization probably assumes you already are. Your business teams might be wondering whether they could sidestep you with it. And you are going to generate better insights because of it.

But don’t stop there. AI just does the routine stuff so that your real role can begin. It will help you gather and synthesize the insights. Your role is to translate insights for your business. Only you know how your business teams get things done. Only you can use AI-generated insights to influence great decisions. 

Throughout my career I started researching what made insights departments successful. What worked and what didn’t? Over time, I assembled those patterns into a mind-set called Big Blue Crayon. In short, turn your analysis into a story so simple you could draw it with a big, blue crayon. And, over time the C-suite wasn’t ready to make key decisions until they considered my team’s analysis. In other words, we performed our role: we influenced the business. 

This works for all sorts of groups – finance, HR, communications, operations – anyone who needs to influence a decision with data. 

The power of simple storytelling

It takes time and training to master the art of Big Blue Crayon storytelling. Most of its ideas are intuitive, concepts you probably already know but maybe haven’t formed into a regular habit. Here are the top four principles: 

  • Know your audience and remember that they’re lazy.
  • Every story has a reason for being told. Know yours.
  • Give your entire story up front. Spoil the punchline.
  • Your presentation should flow like a story.

Know your audience and remember that they’re lazy. You must know who you’re influencing. Customize your approach based on them. Does your data support what they’re hoping for? Will it be disappointing to them? Do they have comfort with supporting detail? Are they suspicious of your methodologies, or even care about them? Regardless, all audiences will be lazy. The moment you put information in front of them it should be immediately clear what you’re showing.

Every story has a reason for being told. Know yours. All analysis is to drive a decision. If you don’t know what the decision is, find out. If the decision isn’t clear, get clarity. If there isn’t a decision, don’t present the material.  

Give your entire story up front. Spoil the punchline. One of the worst outcomes to an insights presentation is to have your audience draw a different conclusion than you intended. Tell them immediately what decision the results are pointing to. That way, they’ll have this in mind as they hear your results. Your research will leave a deeper impression. And if anyone wants to challenge your implications, this will tee up the healthy discussion you need them to have. 

Your presentation should flow like a story. Use whatever flow is most effective for your story. But never, no matter what, present your information in survey question order or in some other framework that doesn’t have any bearing on your power to influence. 

AI, insights and effective storytelling

If your job is to create insights, AI can help you be more effective. But your role is to influence. Without you, AI will give everyone in your business the same nightstand each and every time – even if that isn’t what your business really needs. Start telling stories that influence.