Research operations · Experian · Ongoing
We have a saying on the team: users don't read. We usually mean the people we study, but stakeholders turned out to be users too, and the findings we delivered kept going unreferenced past the readout. So we set out to change how research actually reaches people.
Could research findings be made accessible and searchable enough that a stakeholder could ask a question in their own words, the way they'd ask a colleague, and get a thorough, representative answer back, without waiting on a readout that might never get referenced again?
The approach evolved through three systems, each solving what the last one couldn't.
The friction itself was the real cost. When accessing research took too much effort, most stakeholders didn't push through it. They simply moved forward and made the decision without an answer.
Given enough friction, stakeholders don't go looking for research. They just move forward without it.
Research now sits closer to the center of the room when business decisions get made. Not simply available somewhere, but present in the tools and moments where those decisions actually happen.
The demand hasn't leveled off. It's grown: research needs to go further, faster.
That's the current chapter: an internally hosted, independent research agent built to field complex questions and requests directly, tailored to a stakeholder's role and the task at hand. The point was never speed for its own sake. It's making sure friction never gets to decide whether the people we study end up represented in a decision.