Leveraging AI to Improve Market Research with Avi Yashchin with Host Rebecca Kalogeris

In a recent episode of the Pragmatic Product Chat Series, host Rebecca Kalogeris sat down with Avi Yashchin, founder and CEO of Subconscious AI, to explore how AI-driven market research is transforming how businesses understand consumer behavior. Subconscious AI leverages synthetic respondents and causal AI models to deliver faster, more efficient, and ethical insights. Here are 10 key takeaways from their conversation that every product manager, marketer, and data-driven professional should know.

1. Addressing the Say-Do Gap

Avi highlighted the "say-do gap," where what people say they want differs from their actions. For example, many American men claim to prefer dark, robust coffee but choose light, sweet blends in blinded tests. Subconscious AI tackles this by running experiments that force language models to make choices, revealing true preferences with high reliability.

2. Lightning-Fast Insights

Rebecca was impressed by the platform’s speed, noting that she received experiment results, including attributes and weights, in just 9.5 minutes. This rapid turnaround allows businesses to test hypotheses quickly, making Subconscious AI a “digital camera” compared to the “film camera” of traditional research.

3. Near-Human Accuracy

Subconscious AI achieves 85-90% accuracy compared to human responses, validated through extensive testing. They’ve transcribed 1,200 human studies in psychology, sociology, and economics, running these experiments on language models to ensure reliable, actionable insights.

4. Robust Validation Methods

To build trust, Subconscious AI uses three validation approaches: comparing results to existing human studies, running client experiments with held-back human data, and conducting parallel human experiments with early stopping criteria. This ensures AI insights align closely with real-world behaviors.

5. Ethical and Accessible Research

Avi emphasized the ethical mission of democratizing quantitative market research. Their goal is to make causal thinking accessible, even to a seventh grader, by enabling anyone to run behavioral experiments and learn from data-driven insights without prohibitive costs.

6. Behavioral Economics at the Core

Subconscious AI employs behavioral economists to focus on causation, not just correlation. This approach delivers “investment-grade advice,” enabling businesses to make confident decisions based on measurable outcomes like price elasticity or willingness to pay.

7. Uncovering Model Biases

The platform identifies biases in language models, such as a French model (Mistral) showing a positive bias toward Iraqi immigrants in a 2014 immigration study, unlike human responses. This transparency helps users understand model strengths and limitations.

8. Real-World Impact

A SaaS client used Subconscious AI to discover they were underpricing their product at $99/month. By raising prices to $400-$500/month based on the platform’s insights, they achieved a 300% revenue increase, proving the power of data-driven pricing strategies.

9. Bridging B2B and B2C

While Rebecca initially viewed the tool through a B2B lens, Avi noted its strong B2C applications. Marketing agencies use it to bridge qualitative and quantitative research, testing features or messaging to guide larger human studies, saving time and budget.

10. A Vision for Deeper AI Thinking

Avi envisions Subconscious AI enabling language models to move beyond intuitive “System 1” thinking to reflective “System 2” thinking. By running experiments on themselves, models can understand trade-offs and cause-and-effect, offering strategic insights for complex business decisions.

Get Started with Subconscious AI

Subconscious AI is revolutionizing market research by making it faster, more accessible, and grounded in causal reasoning. Whether you’re optimizing pricing, designing products, or testing messaging, their platform offers a powerful way to uncover what customers truly value. Visit subconscious.ai to try their platform for free and join their Discord community to connect with other innovators. Ready to transform your business decisions? Start experimenting today!

If you’d like to try out the Subconscious.ai platform for your market research needs, you can run 2 free experiments by clicking “Get Started” here.