Qualitative customer research has always forced a tradeoff: depth or scale, pick one. Focus groups go deep but small; surveys go wide but shallow.
Korst, Puntoni, and Toubia show how AI interviewers ease that tradeoff, running rich, adaptive conversations at a scale that focus groups and hand-run interviews can't match, surfacing the "why" behind the "what." In one comparison the research firm GBK Collective ran with Twinloop, spoken answers to an AI interviewer came back about seven times longer than typed survey responses.
The point that matters for leaders: this isn't automation of an existing task. It points to a new capability, hearing your customers with more depth and reach than traditional methods allow. On the Flywheel, that's AI as accelerant: the work itself gets redesigned, not just sped up.
So what: The old depth-versus-scale tradeoff in customer research is loosening. Worth a look if you've been forced to pick.