AI Heroes: Jenna Beglin - Episode 18
Mon Jan 19 2026
Beyond Speed and Efficiency - When AI Should Unlock New Possibilities
When Jenna Beglin evaluates AI tools for consumer research, she's not asking "can this make us faster?" She's asking a more fundamental question: "Does this enable us to do something we couldn't do before?" As a research and insights leader focusing on tech, Jenna has developed a clear philosophy about AI's role in research—one that challenges the prevailing obsession with productivity gains.
In this conversation, Jenna shares her perspective on why AI should be additive rather than simply time-saving. She discusses the tension between what she calls "the race to mediocrity"—where AI produces passable but uninspired work—and the genuine breakthroughs that happen when technology unlocks entirely new capabilities. From synthetic respondents to AI-moderated interviews, Jenna walks through her evaluation framework: Is this meaningfully better? Does this give us insights we couldn't access before?
This episode offers a practitioner's framework for thinking about AI adoption—focused not on doing the same things faster, but on genuinely expanding what's possible in consumer insights work.
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Beyond Speed and Efficiency - When AI Should Unlock New Possibilities When Jenna Beglin evaluates AI tools for consumer research, she's not asking "can this make us faster?" She's asking a more fundamental question: "Does this enable us to do something we couldn't do before?" As a research and insights leader focusing on tech, Jenna has developed a clear philosophy about AI's role in research—one that challenges the prevailing obsession with productivity gains. In this conversation, Jenna shares her perspective on why AI should be additive rather than simply time-saving. She discusses the tension between what she calls "the race to mediocrity"—where AI produces passable but uninspired work—and the genuine breakthroughs that happen when technology unlocks entirely new capabilities. From synthetic respondents to AI-moderated interviews, Jenna walks through her evaluation framework: Is this meaningfully better? Does this give us insights we couldn't access before? This episode offers a practitioner's framework for thinking about AI adoption—focused not on doing the same things faster, but on genuinely expanding what's possible in consumer insights work.