AI and research are a potent combination. At Forrester, we’re proud to be at the forefront of using AI to help our clients surface trusted insights from our research. It’s revolutionizing how quickly and easily clients can access our trusted advice. AI has also been a boon to us internally, helping analysts scour through piles of interview notes, data, briefing content, and more in record time. This expands our collective knowledge and pushes our thinking in new directions.

But in this age of AI, the value — the magic — of what Forrester provides is still largely human. That’s why, along with harnessing AI’s potential, we’re doubling down on the unique value that analysts bring to client relationships. Analysts offer a depth and veracity of lived experience — both their own and that of the countless clients and vendors they work with every day — that can’t be discounted or fully automated. They have access to insights at a depth and scale well beyond any individual practitioner or consultant. And they have the critical thinking, empathy, ingenuity, and courage — all distinctly human capacities — to help clients make smart decisions and solve real business problems. In this fast-changing, uncertain climate, that is especially critical.

The DNA Of A Great Analyst

The traits and skills that make an analyst great are time-tested. I’ve had the privilege of observing these in many of my colleagues over nearly 25 years at Forrester.

Great analysts have a uniquely critical eye and a creative mind. Couple those two traits with access to unmatched quantitative and qualitative insights from clients, interviewees, surveys, and technology service providers, and you get, well — magic. Analysts can quickly identify success patterns, separate hype from reality, and predict future states. They can bring new, creative solutions to age-old problems. They can get inside clients’ realities and use that understanding to advise on tactical specifics and solutions for a certain function, role, company, team, or individual. And their critical thinking and courage enables them to boldly go against the grain when needed to give clients the best path forward.

Great analysts also share another trait: They love collaboration and constructive debate. At Forrester, we look for people who want their ideas pushed and challenged — who believe that deeply engaging with other smart, experienced people will make their research better. This is essential to the collaborative nature of how we create research and for facilitating the collaboration needed in our clients’ organizations for change to take hold. Multiple, cross-disciplinary perspectives not only make our research stronger, but they also ensure that our insights fit together so leaders across functions can solve problems together. That’s how meaningful change takes place.

Trust: The Differentiator In An AI World

AI has a tremendously valuable role to play for us as a research firm. AI can help our clients quickly surface trusted insights from our research. It can also make the best of our analysts even better by freeing them up to do more of what they’re uniquely suited for: uncovering success patterns, defining best practices, predicting future states, critically evaluating technology markets, and, most importantly, helping our clients solve problems and accelerate growth. It can help our analysts get uniquely valuable, impactful content to clients faster — and spend more time helping them apply it to their worlds.

Long term, AI will reshape the industry for the better. It will help separate research based on unique, differentiated, and trusted insights from what’s publicly available online. It will underscore the value of research organizations that provide fresh, proprietary, and unbiased insights and help clients apply them in context.

Forrester has built its reputation over four decades on a foundation of trust. We sit at the intersection of practitioners and vendors, providing an unbiased and tested view to help leaders move forward faster. That trust is priceless in a complex world of AI, and it’s why trust — grounded in rigor, independence, and experience — will always be the guiding force for our analysts, our research, and our AI tools, acting as our greatest differentiator.