To understand the future of the market research industry, my guest is Tom Smith, Founder and CEO of GWI. Having spent several years working agency side, he recognised a growing demand for global data to better understand the complex online market, coupling the world's largest ongoing study on the digital consumer with powerful analytics. GWI is now the leading provider of digital consumer insights to the global marketing industry.My favourite section of the podcast was where Tom said"People think data is the new oil, and we’re all sitting on this very valuable commodity. The better comparison is that data is like sand. Until you do something with the information, it lacks real value. It’s the processing it's the presentation, it’s the aggregation and millions of people’s data aggregated at scale is a highly valuable product."Tom argues that the market research industry has utterly failed the needs of its consumers in today's global marketplace - this is a bold statement and something Tom addresses in detail in this episode.In this episode, we look at:Why Tom started GWIThe changing needs of the market research industryHow traditional market research methods have evolvedWhat problems GWI solvesHow Ad blockers, GDPR and other regulations have changed collection methodologyWhere AI fits into modern market research methodsThe future of market researchBeing an EntrepreneurMore on TomLinkedInTwitterGWI WebsiteYour Host: Actionable Futurist® & Chief Futurist Andrew GrillFor more on Andrew - what he speaks about and recent talks, please visit ActionableFuturist.com Andrew's Social ChannelsAndrew on LinkedIn@AndrewGrill on Twitter @Andrew.Grill on InstagramKeynote speeches hereAndrew's upcoming book