In a 1998 interview, Steve Jobs was asked whether Apple had done consumer research when developing the iMac. At the time, Apple was trying to revive its fortunes after years of decline, and the iMac—with its radically different, translucent shell—was a bold gamble for a company fighting to regain its footing. The question was straightforward: How much of the product had been shaped by what consumers said they wanted? Jobs’ answer was more nuanced. Apple had plenty of research on its existing customers and watched industry trends closely, he said. But he was wary of using focus groups to design complex products. “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them,” he told Businessweek.
The market research industry has evolved dramatically since then, embracing online panels, behavioral data, and AI. It is now possible to have thousands of conversations with customers at a fraction of the time and cost. But does having more customer insight actually lead to better products?
The founders of Conveo, a two-year-old Belgian startup, believe the answer lies in using AI to identify patterns customers may not articulate themselves. That means looking across hundreds or thousands of video conversations for recurring frustrations, unmet needs, and emerging behaviors—and then giving product and marketing teams a way to act on them.
“If you are doing a thousand interviews a month, you can start asking questions like: What is changing? What are people talking about? What are the emerging trends? What are the things that we don’t know that we don’t know?” says Conveo co-founder Hendrik Van Hove. “And then you can start using that data to inform your decision making on a continuous basis.”
Van Hove came up with the original idea for Conveo while working at McKinsey, where he was running studies, surveys, and interviews, and often analyzing the findings until late at night. While working on a project for a large pharmaceutical company, he realized AI could transform the way interviews were conducted. “I could see that this was one of the few use cases where AI actually works,” he recalls. With the backing of influential Silicon Valley incubator Y Combinator, Van Hove and co-founder Dieter De Mesmaeker launched Conveo’s first product, an AI moderator, in 2024.
For years, researchers have tried to bridge the gap between the scale of quantitative research, which analyzes large data samples to identify trends, and the depth of qualitative research, which uses interviews, focus groups, and other methods to explore why people think or behave the way they do. AI moderation pushes that idea further, allowing companies to conduct hundreds or thousands of adaptive, qualitative-style interviews rather than simply analyze larger volumes of data.
But while the idea of “qual at scale” is gaining traction, it has split the industry. Critics question whether you can really scale a methodology whose value has traditionally rested on depth, human interpretation, and the ability to read between the lines.
“I see it as a supplement, not a substitute for human-to-human research,” says Simon Shaw, director of behavioral science at market research and insight consultancy Trinity McQueen, and board member of the Association of Qualitative Research (AQR). “These platforms are fast and cost-efficient… but I think there are real differences. Good qualitative research is relational, reflective, and nonlinear. There are moments of inspiration, which is a very human thing.”
He argues that AI moderation, in contrast, is “extracting information, rather than having a relational exchange with somebody”. That limits its ability to build trust, understand emerging cultural themes, or get to the heart of what people really think or feel about something.
Van Hove says Conveo’s AI can analyze videos for body language and tone of voice and react in real-time, so it is getting closer to traditional qualitative research. But it was never the intention to replace humans: “We’re not trying to be better than a human, it’s just not possible. When you’re in someone’s house, seeing how they live, there are all these other factors you can add [to an analysis of their behavior, which AI cannot].”
Where the real value of AI moderation becomes obvious, he says, is if you do a larger project. “For example, we have companies in Europe that are doing research in Japan,” Van Hove explains. “You don’t have one interviewer per market; it’s the same AI analyzing every market. There are no translation issues. The data is perfectly captured, so you can go back to it months later. That’s when the ROI is clear.”
He adds that there are other benefits to using AI moderators. “There’s no time constraint; there’s no human judgement. People are typically not willing to share negative feedback when there’s a human interviewer, but they’ll be honest with AI.”
Investors can see the potential. Conveo’s Series A in September raised $50 million from DST Global, Balderton Capital, Visionaries, 6 Degrees Capital and Y Combinator—bringing its total funding to date to $55.8 million.
As attention turns to growing the company in the U.S., Van Hove has swapped Brussels for Manhattan. “There’s a big difference in terms of how much access you have to capital, to talent, and to clients [in America],” says Van Hove. “Today I have a meeting with the CEO of a protein brand, an hour later, I go to a marketing event where there will be CMOs of Fortune 500 companies, and then I have a dinner with one of the largest pharma agency owners in the U.S. In Belgium, you’d have to take a flight and plan two weeks in advance to have even one of those meetings.”
“There’s no time constraint; there’s no human judgement. People are typically not willing to share negative feedback when there’s a human interviewer, but they’ll be honest with AI”
Conveo co-founder, Hendrik Van Hove
However, Van Hove says being headquartered in Europe has its advantages. “There’s a lot less employee churn. Our team is super loyal, we have a lot of fun together, and everyone is invested [in the future of the company]. The work ethic in Europe is incredible. We’re also very happy with our European investors.”
Conveo has scaled from a team of 15 in December 2025 to 80 and has offices in New York, San Francisco and London. “We are only at 1% of our journey, and so I feel like there’s still so much ahead of us,” says Van Hove. “There’s so much that we still need to get out of the ecosystem, in Europe and in the U.S. I’m looking forward to what’s next.”
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