While post-truth – our panellists’ choice for 2016’s buzzword – and even post-post-truth both cropped up when asked to predict what would be on our lips in 2017, our panel of experts mostly agreed that technological advancements around artificial intelligence would be a key talking point of the year to come. 

Virtual reality, smart data, integration, disruption, speed and emotion were among other mentions. 

"Virtual reality. Internet searches for VR are already outpacing big data and the gap is only going to get bigger." Julian Highley, global director of customer knowledge at dunnhumby.

"Emotion: In times of economic and political uncertainty, I think we’re in for a year of heart-warming, reassuring, emotionally charged advertising." Jane Rudling, managing director, Marketing Sciences Unlimited.

"Emotion. Beyond judging outcomes on the basis of spreadsheets, we must get great at understanding when anger, frustration and other emotions outwit the experts." Joe Staton, client services lead, GfK market opportunities and innovation.

"I know what I think it should be: heterophily, which is the love of all things that are different." Jane Frost, CEO, Market Research Society.

"It is only a question of time until we see chatbots being used as a survey tool. In particular customer satisfaction surveys could be completely transformed! The customer has a conversation about their experience, instead of filling in a survey. Based on sentiment and content of an answer, chatbots can control the interview flow, and elicit more details from generic responses by digging into the Why. This is the future." Frank Hedler, director of advanced analytics at Simpson Carpenter.

"Speed. Speed is king among our customers. In the digital age, business is getting faster and market research needs to speed up to keep pace with the business. Automation helps brands answer questions more rapidly and gain in-the-moment insights. It gets data moving as rapidly as possible to meet business demands." Frédéric-Charles Petit, CEO, Toluna.

“Cross-device. It’s not a new one, but we are closer than ever to being able to solve the cross-device, audience de-duplication conundrum. Sales and marketing is becoming more omni-channel than ever, and paths to purchase more complex to track and understand. Digital marketing channels are diversifying, and digital attribution models are fundamentally flawed. So marketing ROI depends on a better holistic understanding of campaign impact and consumer insight.” Greg Dunbar, vice-president of sales for EMEA, Cint.

What will success look like in 2017? Find out what the industry thinks tomorrow