Insights from Quirk's NYC: How Qual, Quant, and Gen Z Research Are Changing

From the opening session, we found an industry occupied with a different kind of disruption: the fast-expanding role of AI in research. My colleague John Pickering covered that shift in his own Quirk's NYC recap, and I saw the same thing. While not yet into everyday research, AI is moving up the maturity curve past the initial experimental phase into early adoption, with wide differences from organization to organization – on the agency and client-side alike.

Two other things stood out to me just as much: how qualitative and quantitative research are converging, and what Gen Z is telling researchers about financial confidence.

Qualitative and Quantitative Research Are Moving Closer Together

A theme that kept surfacing was the increasingly fluid boundary between qualitative and quantitative research.

Conversational surveys, intelligent probing, video responses, and AI-assisted analysis let researchers capture more of the motivation and context behind quantitative findings, while still preserving depth and scale in the same study. A single study can now integrate robust measurement with respondents' own language and stories, giving you both confidence in the pattern and a real sense of what's driving it. Granted, mixed-method studies have been around for a long time, but the new tools are making it easier to bring depth and scale together within a single study.

On this AI front, it is important to remember that, while AI can help organize the information, researchers still have to determine whether the patterns are meaningful, challenge questionable outputs, and connect the evidence to the decisions clients need to make.  

What Gen Z Wants from Financial Decisions

Technology wasn't the only shift discussed. Several sessions looked at how consumers themselves are changing, and understanding the Gen Z cohort in particular came up often.

One presentation dug into Gen Z's relationship with money. There's a real tension in how they approach it. This group wants to make informed decisions and prepare for the future but may feel uncertain, and taking action can itself create stress. Taking a financial step can become a source of stress rather than progress, especially in families where money stays a private topic. That leaves younger consumers with fewer low-stakes ways to build financial knowledge or check whether they're making a reasonable choice. Giving them reassurance is important; confidence that they understand their options, that they're taking a reasonable step, and that they're preparing themselves adequately.

There's a related tension in how they weigh tradeoffs. Gen Z consumers often want financial security, rewarding experiences, convenience, flexibility, and alignment with their values all at once, which can look like a lot to ask for from the outside. From a research standpoint, the more useful question is what's actually behind those expectations, and how people prioritize when a real choice forces them to pick.

My own advice for brands catering to Gen Z:

• Make complex decisions feel understandable and manageable
• Build confidence without being patronizing
• Give clear guidance and evidence it's paying off, like money saved or a goal within reach.
• Recognize the anxiety without defining the generation by it
• Explore the tradeoffs people actually make in practice, rather than assuming they'll articulate them directly

Gen Z spans a wide range of experiences and attitudes, and research is useful here specifically because it can separate what's broadly shared from what varies and figure out what kind of reassurance actually helps. This is a topic we've spent time on ourselves; our work on Gen Z and financial services points to the same need for confidence and connection, built through research that treats Gen Z as more than a single label.

What Disruption Hasn't Changed 

From qualitative and quantitative research working more closely together to understanding what Gen Z actually needs, the same idea kept surfacing: more sophisticated tools and faster methods have not replaced the need for interpretation and strategic advice. Researchers still should take their clients along the “what, so what, now what” framework. Someone still has to decide which combination of methods best answers the real question and what a tension like Gen Z's need for reassurance actually means for a brand's next move.

We came back from New York with new methods worth exploring and a renewed appreciation for the human work at the center of research and why human judgment remains important as the tools evolve.

If you're thinking about how these shifts apply to your organization, we'd welcome the conversation. Connect with Phase 5 to learn more.

Recommended Resources:

• WEBINAR - Build the Right Product Before You Build the Product: How Early-Stage VOC Drives Better Decisions
• WEBINAR Replay - Jobs-to-be-Done in the Age of AI: Finding the Next Customer Opportunity
• Size Matters in CX: What the Customer Experience Strategies Summit Revealed About the Future of CX