Speed Is Cheap, Trust Is Expensive | Signal & Noise Ep 25 скачать в хорошем качестве

Speed Is Cheap, Trust Is Expensive | Signal & Noise Ep 25

In this episode of Signal and Noise, Brian and Andrew sit down with Tom Anderson and Spencer Imel, co-founders and partners at The Langston Co, a quant-focused consumer insights firm known for deep category expertise and rigorous research standards. Tom and Spencer share the origin story behind Langston, from their early days working together at a fast-growing Denver startup to building a research firm rooted in reliability, trust, and methodological discipline. What began as two social scientists exploring how to understand consumers evolved into a firm now operating at the intersection of AI, category intelligence, and scalable insights. The core of the conversation centers on a bold idea: AI has made speed cheap, but trust is still expensive. Langston describes its journey from early skepticism about AI to building a sophisticated internal Insights Assistant that sits on top of category-level survey ecosystems. Instead of treating AI as magic, the team invested heavily in understanding how large language models actually work, including context windows, tool calls, and failure points. By combining structured survey data, industry context, and documented research methodologies, they created a system that accelerates analysis without sacrificing rigor. The episode includes a live walkthrough of their AI-powered Insights Assistant, demonstrating how a brand manager could instantly explore brand performance across age groups within a facial skincare category. The conversation then zooms out to tackle bigger questions about the future of research, including: Will chat-based AI become the new dashboard? How should firms balance automation with human interpretation? What happens to the role of the researcher in an AI-forward world? If you loved the episode, have comments, or want to appear on the show, connect with us down below! Connect with us: LinkedIn:   / roirocket   YouTube:    / @signalandnoise-z2d7y   ROI Rocket: https://www.roirocket.com/ Learn more about The Langston Co: Website: https://www.thelangstonco.com/about Connect with Tom: LinkedIn:   / tom-anderson-7045707a   Connect with Spencer: LinkedIn:   / spencerimel