Hakan Yurdakul on the Next Frontier in Insights Podcast

The episode explores the Honesty Gap, the space between what people genuinely believe and what they feel safe saying out loud, and why closing that gap matters so much for the future of consumer research.

The research behind the conversation

Using Bolt Insight's original research into attitudes toward LGBTQ+ inclusion in professional football as the central case study, Hakan unpacks one of the most striking findings from the study. 92% of respondents said a professional footballer should feel safe to come out. But that number, it turns out, tells you less than you might think.

As Hakan explains in the episode:

"That answer doesn't measure what people feel. It measures their awareness of the right answer, because that's what they have been told. At school, in the media, throughout their social network, they know what the right answer is and they give you that. But once you dig deeper into their thoughts in a private conversation, in this case with our AI moderator where you remove even the social bias of having a human, the human judgment involved, when you remove that from the conversation they became very candid and they start to explain a lot of other things."

Why research conditions matter

This is exactly the problem AI moderation was built to solve. By removing the human social bias from the equation, Bolt Intelligence creates the conditions for real honesty. Respondents are no longer performing for an audience. They are thinking out loud, and the insights that surface are fundamentally different as a result.

The conversation also looks ahead to where the insights industry is heading in 2026 and beyond. Hakan is clear that AI does not replace the need for expert researchers. It creates the conditions where real insight can surface. The interpretation, the strategic framework, the understanding of what the data is actually saying, that still requires human expertise and judgment.

It is a must-listen for anyone working in insights, research or brand strategy who wants to understand not just what AI can do for research, but why the conditions under which research is conducted matter as much as the questions themselves.

Listen to the full episode on the Next Frontier in Insights podcast!