The state of connected insights in 2025

Consumer voices have never been more accessible. Yet many organizations remain stuck in fragmented, reactive approaches to operationalizing consumer insights instead of connecting them.

Connected insights help businesses make smarter decisions, drive better advertising and innovation and enhance customer experiences by providing a comprehensive understanding of consumers, trends and patterns over time. 

In our second annual Connected Insights Imperative report, we surveyed professionals across industries to better understand the current state of connectedness for consumer insights, which includes satisfaction levels, persistent barriers and the role of emerging technologies, including AI.

Read on for a summary of our key findings as well as what’s changed from last year. 

One of the most prominent findings this year was the level of satisfaction when paired with the level of connectedness.  

We found that connected insights dramatically improves satisfaction, which helps drive internal collaboration and business efficiency.

In fact, satisfaction with insights increases among companies with connected insights by at least 24 points. Satisfaction with the relationship between insights and marketing teams for connected companies increased by 32 points.

Yet only 38% of organizations are currently at this level, with half of respondents remaining fragmented.

Building off the last finding, data fragmentation (41%) has overtaken budget constraints this year as the top barrier to effectively using insights, reflecting the complexity of modern data landscapes.

Converting insights into action (33%), budget constraints (33%), expertise gaps (29%) and time constraints (26%) are also top challenges.

The shift from budget-first to data-first barriers reflects organizational maturity. Companies are investing in insights but struggling with integration complexity.

Unsurprisingly, we also found that investments in AI (particularly hiring for new roles in AI) have increased.

44% of companies hired new AI/data integration roles in the past year. This technology usage correlates strongly with organizational maturity.

Only 1 in 5 (19%) say they didn’t make any changes in the last year to improve insights.

Last year Zappi introduced The Connected Insights Framework. The framework highlights many areas of focus in which business leaders, particularly insights and marketing leaders, must partner in order to drive change via the insights function. It asks a series of questions to enable individuals to self-assess their level of maturity.

We found that while most organizations aspire to Level 3: Connected, leading companies are already pioneering Level 4: Accelerated. 

In Level 4, consumer understanding isn't a separate activity. Instead, it's embedded in daily operations, and access becomes accelerated with AI.

AI adoption to leverage centralized consumer data represents the ultimate bridge between marketing and insights, where insights become an indistinguishable part of the consumer-centric operating model.

This, in turn, speeds up decision-making to drive business outcomes faster than ever before. For a deeper look into Level 4, particularly into the characteristics and what it means for CEOs and CMOs, download our report.

This year, we found who does the work matters less than how it's organized.

Satisfaction levels are considerably higher when insights are viewed as advisers (proactive) or strategic partners (collaborative) compared to order takers (reactive). 

It’s the teams with collaborative, assertive engagement models that significantly outperform.

We also took a look into any notable changes since last year. Here’s three key updates we uncovered:

1. Data fragmentation as top challenge

The most striking change from last year is that data fragmentation overtook budget constraints as the primary barrier. 

This suggests that organizations have secured budgets for insights investment, so the challenge has shifted to integration and utilization. It also suggests that as companies are gaining experience with AI, they are realizing that fragmented consumer data presents very real limitations.

2. Investments growing in AI and data

Another change since last year is the surge in AI and data integration hiring (44%), which represents a significant organizational commitment. 

Companies now recognize the technical skills gap and are actively addressing it.

3. Tech adoption improves with connected insights maturity

Finally, we found that the correlation between organizational maturity and technology usage has strengthened, indicating that connected insights and technological capability are becoming increasingly intertwined. 

For a deeper look into last year’s findings, check out our summary of last year’s report.

Organizations are at an inflection point. Investments in AI and data integration show commitment to insights transformation, yet satisfaction gaps persist, particularly around data fragmentation and translation challenges.

Level 4 represents the next frontier — where consumer insights become organizational DNA. Level 4 companies won't just have connected insights, they'll have accelerated consumer responsiveness.

The question isn't whether to pursue connected insights. The question is how quickly you can move from fragmented to connected to accelerated. 

To dive deeper into our findings and discover the all things Level 4, implications for CMOs and insights professionals, as well as a complete overview of the current state of connected insights, download our report below.