The Lab, led by newly announced chief AI scientist Ashok Kalidas, is introducing a generative AI marketing assistant called Kantar AI Assistant (KaiA), which allows users to interrogate data in a conversational way.

KaiA is initially available for clients of Kantar’s brand tracking services; further Kantar data sets will be included later.

The Lab has also launched Text AI, a generative AI-based approach to analysing open-ended survey responses, deriving insights using more conversational questions. The tool helps identify, group and understand common patterns in large bodies of text-based responses.

Kalidas said: “We are building an AI strategy to disrupt our industry at scale, merging our AI capabilities with the expertise of our people and the scale of our data.

“In data collection, we are focused on the impact AI can have in enhancing fraud prevention, the role of synthetic data and fast and flexible data sourcing. For clients, our work is enabling everything from data connectivity to campaign optimisation.”  

In other changes, later in the year Kantar is planning to integrate Lift ROI and Link AI data to measure the impact of creative quality on the effectiveness of media exposure. 

Link+ digital creative testing will soon have the ability to predict brand lift, while Link AI will include automated creative tagging for ads tested within the platform. 

Ted Prince, chief product officer at Kantar, said the AI Lab’s set of tools offers “new AI-led research applications that will transform the relationship between brands and consumers”.