For IIEX AI, Focaldata AI’s Managing Director, Marco Pasqualina, joined Pierre Bouvard, Chief Insights Officer at Cumulus Media and Westwood One, to discuss their innovative collaboration, leveraging AI to transform how they analyse and understand podcast consumption.

Key findings: When comparing AI-powered election media coverage and swing state polling data, Signal AI and Focal Data analysis found that… Harris consistently outperforms Trump in media sentiment in every swing state, but Trump leads in voter polls in three swing states. Perhaps because she’s the lesser-known candidate, Harris is seen as a more polarizing figure across all states. Jobs and the economy emerge as the most polarized issue, while national security and race relations are, at least through the lens of the election, less fraught.

With the Labour government’s focus on increasing economic growth, in this blog post we examine whether there actually is (in Liz Truss’s words) an ‘anti-growth coalition’ within public opinion and whether there is a corresponding ‘pro-growth coalition’. We asked the British public its opinions on economic growth, technological change and human progress to see how these beliefs map – and don’t map – onto existing political divides. We find that growth attitudes form a distinct dimension of political beliefs, separate from traditional left-right economic or liberal-conservative cultural divides. There is indeed evidence of both pro- and anti-growth sentiments, but these cut across party lines. Labour and (to a lesser extent) Conservative voters are the most pro-growth, while non-voters, Reform UK and Green Party supporters show the strongest anti-growth leanings. Occupation also plays a crucial role, with higher managerial and professional workers being the most pro-growth, but skilled manual workers notably anti-growth.

Focaldata CEO, Justin Ibbett, reflects on the past 12 months of rapid technology change in Market Research Society's third report in a series exploring the impact of generative AI on market research.

We are delighted to unveil Minorities Report: The Attitudes of Britain’s Ethnic Minority Population, a groundbreaking new paper conducted by Focaldata and UK in a Changing Europe.