At this year’s IIEX.AI conference, presented by Greenbook, one theme came through loud and clear: the shift from automation to agency. Across keynotes and panels, speakers explored how AI is no longer just streamlining workflows — it’s reshaping how organizations learn, decide, and act.
Against that backdrop, Rival’s CEO Andrew Reid and EVP of Design & Innovation Dale Evernden took the stage to tackle a defining question for modern research: how can we use AI not just to do our work faster, but to gain insights that were previously invisible?
Their session, “Agentic AI: Revealing Insights Hidden in Unstructured Data,” introduced a simple yet powerful framework for how AI creates value in insight work and shared Rival’s evolving view of AI as a collaborator, not a replacement.
Watch the full session here — or keep reading for the highlights.
Rival’s approach starts with a simple but strategic model: three pillars of AI value creation — Assist, Amplify, and Unlock.
Each represents a distinct way AI creates measurable impact for research and marketing organizations — from productivity gains to entirely new forms of discovery.
This is where most teams begin: assistive AI that streamlines routine tasks so humans can focus on higher-value work.
At Rival, assist means tools like Authoring Assistant and Tone Refinement; features that remove the friction from building surveys in conversational language within the Rival platform.
As Dale put it, “Assist is all about AI making the work easier, faster and less painful.” The result of streamlining that work is more space for sharper questions, deeper thinking, and cleaner execution.
Once AI is helping you work faster, the next opportunity is for it to help you speak louder.
Amplify is about expanding the reach and resonance of insights, ensuring they travel farther and spark action within your organization.
Tools like Smart Probe, Insight Summarizer and Insight Reels, transform static findings into stories that stick. They help teams synthesize, visualize, and distribute insights across an organization in richer, more human ways.
When AI amplifies insight, it transforms information into the impact that moves organizations forward.
The final pillar, Unlock, is where AI shifts from assistant to explorer. It’s the space where we ask, “what else might be out there?” and where AI helps us venture into new forms of data, audiences, and hypotheses.
It’s still early days in the “unlock” stage at Rival. We’re experimenting with ideas like Digital Twins and Synthetic Samples — ways to model audiences and simulate behavior to learn faster and test smarter. The goal isn’t to create artificial humanity, but to uncover patterns and opportunities that help us understand humanity better.
Theory met practice as the team demoed some of Rival’s newest AI capabilities: Smart Probe, Thoughtfulness Score, and Insight Reels.
Each demo showcased how AI can support the full insight workflow from deep qualitative exploration to vivid storytelling. And how AI can be used to enhance research, resulting in more human context, clarity, and creativity at every step.
Rival’s approach is built on a simple conviction — AI should extend human judgment, not replace it.
Our Unstructured Data Agent embodies that philosophy. It partners with researchers to surface meaning from text, video, and other complex inputs always keeping a human in the loop to interpret, validate, and refine.
As Andrew put it, “our goal is for humans to drive the loop. We want researchers to stay in control, deciding when to let AI take the wheel and when to step in. That balance of automation and human oversight is core to how we’re building Rival’s platform.”
For research and marketing leaders evaluating AI investments, the message is clear: the future of insights belongs to those who use AI to expand their vision, not just their velocity.
When AI assists, amplifies, and unlocks, it helps organizations think more deeply and move more confidently
🎥 Watch the full 20-minute IIEX.AI session →
See the live demos, hear the full conversation, and explore how Rival is redefining the future of insight work with AI.
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