At TMRE & MRMW 2025, insights leaders showed growing skepticism toward “shiny” AI tools and an eagerness to find substantial solutions.
Stravito sparked conversations while facilitating a drop-in workshop where attendees could build "AI personas" with LEGOs—making abstract ideas tangible.
The exercise highlighted how real value comes from usable, human-centered AI, not more tech.
Stravito AI Personas helps teams activate existing research, reconnect with consumers, and drive business impact.
The takeaway: the future of insights isn’t about more data—it’s about connection, empathy, and action.
In 2025, insights leaders aren’t drawn in by shiny AI tools and flashy demos anymore.
They want tools that work, not just technology that dazzles.
At TMRE and MRMW, we saw the growing disconnect between the excitement around AI and the reality of applying it in insights work. Many teams are under pressure to implement AI-powered solutions, yet they are wary of gimmicks or yet another tool they’ll struggle to activate. The sentiment we heard again and again: "We know there’s value here. We just haven’t seen it clearly yet."
That tension was matched by a deep desire for progress. Insights leaders want more than just new tech. They want solutions that feel intuitive, human, and useful, especially for activating existing research rather than creating more of it. They want ways to reconnect teams with consumers, to scale their impact, and to reignite curiosity.
That’s exactly the conversation we brought to life with Stravito AI Personas and a handful of LEGO bricks.
At our booths in Las Vegas and Berlin, we invited visitors to build their own LEGO minifigure to represent an AI persona.
Each visitor crafted their own unique minifigures to represent their own AI persona. The tactile experience sparked more than smiles. It sparked conversations. It made abstract ideas tangible. And it helped us all explore a simple question: What does it really mean to bring personas to life?
Like LEGO figures, effective AI personas aren’t off-the-shelf. They’re assembled from the research pieces you already have, brought together into something teams can actually interact with.
At TMRE, we heard a common refrain: "Show me what it does." AI is no longer exciting by default. It has to earn attention.
That was our cue to shift the conversation. Rather than lead with features, we invited people to feel empathy through play, showing how AI can amplify, not automate, human understanding. Stravito AI Personas, like the minifigs people built, are designed to bring dormant segmentation to life with the kind of specificity and interactivity that makes insights usable by everyone, not just the research team.
The sentiment echoed strongly at MRMW. While AI was everywhere, so was a sense of fatigue. Attendees weren’t interested in vague promises. They wanted clarity, utility, and real business impact. That’s where the Stravito AI Persona approach resonated most: Turning personas into everyday tools rather than abstract frameworks.
What we didn’t expect was how deeply the LEGO metaphor would land. It wasn’t just a fun booth gimmick. It became a conversation starter about what it means to feel connected to your customer.
Leaders from brands large and small told us the same thing: they want their teams to understand consumers more intuitively. When AI personas are accessible, visual, and embedded into daily workflows, they become cultural connectors with a shared language across teams.
That emotional connection, it turns out, is also a business one. A C-suite panel at MRMW reinforced that senior stakeholders care about growth, not just insights. Revenue and profit, not research volume, are the language of leadership. When personas can link directly to commercial outcomes, they move from "nice to have" to essential systems of action
Across both events, the message was clear: insights leaders are under pressure. To move faster. Prove ROI. And still deliver meaningful, strategic value.
At MRMW, we had the chance to spotlight how Lavazza is using Stravito AI Personas to do just that. Their insights team has transformed classic segmentation data into live, interactive tools that inform everything from brand positioning to new product development. In a 5-minute dialogue with a target persona, marketers are now surfacing insights that used to require weeks of focus groups and survey scripting.
The impact is clear: faster decisions, revived curiosity, and teams that are reconnecting with their customers in ways that feel fresh, even fun. When personas are treated like living entities that can evolve and respond, rather than static reports, they become the connective tissue between research and action. Attendees shared that this approach to personas felt not only more human but more helpful.
It echoed what we heard at TMRE: this isn’t about more research. It’s about making the research work harder.
TMRE and MRMW made it clear: the next chapter for insights isn’t about having more tech. It’s about using it to connect. To connect research to decisions. To connect teams to consumers. And yes, to connect abstract AI concepts to something you can hold in your hand.
That connection doesn’t start with a shiny AI tool or flashy demo. It starts with a story. Or, in our case, a LEGO figure.
Want to see how Stravito AI Personas help teams connect the dots between research and real decisions? Book a demo.
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