Is the market research industry size growing faster with AI?
The market research industry is undoubtedly growing, but the number you see depends entirely on what’s being counted.
A services-only estimate tells one story. A broader view of the insights ecosystem tells another. Add software, analytics, reporting, automation and AI-enabled research into the picture, and the market starts to look very different. Growth is no longer measured by project volume or headcount alone: it’s measured by how much value research can create when insight is faster, more connected, and easier to use.
Key takeaways
- Market research industry size depends on what’s being counted. Services-only agency revenue and broader software-inclusive estimates can tell very different stories, so every figure needs clear scope.
- Across the main benchmarks, the industry is growing rather than declining. The growth rate varies by region and market definition, but the direction of travel is clear.
- For agencies, AI creates an opportunity to scale output, improve responsiveness, and protect margins without turning research into a people-free function.
- For in-house teams, market size data can help to reposition insights as a strategic growth capability, not just a cost center or project-by-project support function.
- The bigger story is not just industry size, but industry need. Data quality pressures, faster decision cycles and rising expectations for accessible insight are increasing demand for platform-grade research infrastructure.
Why the market research industry size number is harder to pin down than you’d think
Pinning down industry size sounds simple. It isn’t because different analysts count different parts of the insights ecosystem.
Some estimates focus on market research services (the work delivered by agencies, consultancies, and research providers). Others include software, analytics platforms, automation tools, reporting systems, data integration, and adjacent insight services. Some measure the supplier side of the industry, while others try to capture the wider demand for research, data, and intelligence inside organizations.
That’s why two credible market size figures can look very different – and the problem isn’t just academic. It creates real challenges for anyone trying to use market size data in practice.
- For agency leaders, unclear definitions make it harder to benchmark agency growth against the wider market.
- For agency teams, they can make client conversations feel less precise, especially when one source points to steady services growth and another suggests a much larger technology-enabled opportunity.
- For internal research leads, unexplained variance can make it harder to present defensible numbers to leadership when building the case for investment.
Before citing any market size figure, the first question should always be: what is this source counting? Without that scope, a big number may look impressive without being especially useful.
Services-only vs. software-inclusive: why the figures diverge
- A services-only estimate focuses on the work delivered by market research agencies, consultancies, and research providers – including survey design, fieldwork, analysis, reporting, strategic consulting, and other research services.
- A software-inclusive estimate takes a wider view. It can include platforms, analytics tools, reporting systems, automation, text analytics, data integration, and other technologies that help organizations collect, manage, and activate insight.
Neither view is wrong. They’re simply drawing the boundary in a different place.
For agency leaders, a services-only estimate can be a more useful benchmark when comparing agency revenue, growth, and market share. It shows how the supplier side of the industry is performing and gives agencies a clearer way to understand their position in the market.
For in-house leads, a broader software-inclusive view may be more useful when making the case for platform investment internally. If leadership sees market research as nothing more than a series of individual projects, it’s harder to explain why the team needs better infrastructure, but when research is understood as a wider insight ecosystem, the case for platforms, automation, and integrated data becomes much stronger.
Agency revenue vs. department spend: two different markets, one confusing headline number
There’s another distinction worth making: agency revenue and research department spend aren’t the same thing.
- Agency revenue measures what market research agencies and providers earn from delivering research, insight, analytics, consulting, and related services. In other words, the supplier side of the market
- Research department spend captures how internal market research departments invest in research, technology, data, people, platforms, and external partners. Or, the buyer side of the market.
In plain English: one measures what agencies sell; the other measures what internal teams buy, build, or manage to support research across the business.
This matters because one headline number can blur several different things: who’s buying research, who’s selling it, and where platform spend sits.
The scope definitions that matter for agencies and internal teams
The most useful market size figure depends on the decision you’re trying to support, but for much of the industry, there are three scopes that matter:
| Scope | What it includes | Who it’s most useful for |
|---|---|---|
| Agency services revenue | Revenue generated by market research agencies, consultancies, and research providers through research delivery, analysis, reporting and related services. | Agency leaders benchmarking agency growth, comparing market position, or positioning their offering against competitors. |
| Broader research and analysis services | A wider view of research, analytics, consulting, data services, and adjacent insight work. | Agencies and insights teams looking beyond traditional project delivery to understand the wider demand for research and analysis. |
| Full insights ecosystem | Research services plus platforms, software, analytics tools, automation, reporting, data integration, and other infrastructure that supports insight delivery. | Research departments building the case for platform investment, headcount, or modern research infrastructure inside the business. |
Global market size benchmarks for 2025 and 2026
Yes, the industry is big. The smarter answer is which market you’re sizing, and why that boundary matters. The clearest 2025 and 2026 global benchmark comes from the services side of the market.
The Business Research Company’s 2026 report valued the global market research services market at $93.37 billion in 2025, rising to $96.77 billion in 2026. Regionally, North America remained the largest market in 2025, with Western Europe identified as the second-largest region. The MRS values the UK research insight and analytics industry at £9 billion ($12 billion).
With estimations of $160 billion at the end of 2025, a broader view of the global insights ecosystem is larger because it also includes software, analytics, reporting, automation, and digital data. That matters because the industry’s growth is no longer only about how many research projects are commissioned. It’s also about the infrastructure that helps insight move faster through the business.
The gap between those figures doesn’t mean one is right and the other is wrong. It means they’re measuring different things.
The US market: still the world’s largest at $37.7 billion
IBISWorld estimates the US market research and public opinion polling market at $37.7 billion in 2026, underlining the scale of demand in one of the industry’s most mature and commercially influential markets.
For agency leaders, that scale matters because the US often sets expectations that travel. Client demand for faster delivery, stronger data quality, better reporting, AI-enabled workflows and platform-led research operations can shape competitive standards well beyond the US market itself.
For in-house teams, the US figures support a different point. It shows that insights isn’t a niche support function. It operates at significant commercial scale in the world’s largest research market, giving internal teams a stronger basis for conversations about budget, headcount, platforms and long-term research infrastructure.
Europe and APAC: where regional growth is accelerating fastest
North America leads by scale, but Europe and APAC show why the industry’s future isn’t only being shaped by the largest market. Europe has depth, maturity, and established research expertise. APAC has momentum, expanding digital adoption, and rising demand from fast-growth markets.
The Business Research Company identifies Western Europe as the second-largest region for market research services in 2025. That’s important because it shows mature markets aren’t plateauing. They’re evolving as organizations invest in faster, more connected, and more technology-enabled ways to generate insight.
APAC’s momentum can be seen in markets such as India, where the Market Research Society of India reported that the country’s market research industry reached around $3.5 billion in FY2025, up 10.9% from the previous year. That kind of growth points to expanding demand in markets where consumer behavior, digital adoption and business competition are changing quickly.
Is the market research industry growing or declining?
No, the industry isn’t shrinking into irrelevance. It’s evolving, and the growth rate depends on which slice you measure.
The ‘decline’ question usually reflects two different anxieties:
- For agency leaders, the concern is commoditization: whether automation, tighter budgets, and changing client expectations will put pressure on margins.
- For in-house teams, the concern is internal investment: whether insights teams can still justify headcount, platforms, and research budgets when businesses are under pressure to do more with less.
That means growth won’t only come from running more projects. It will come from scaling output, protecting margins, and helping clients get to insight faster.
CAGR projections through 2030: what the data shows
Forecasts vary because publishers model different market boundaries and time horizons.
For market research services, The Business Research Company projects growth from $96.77 billion in 2026 to $116.02 billion in 2030, representing a CAGR of 4.6%. That may not sound explosive, but in a category already worth almost $100 billion, steady single-digit growth represents a significant commercial opportunity. It supports continued investment in people, platforms, methodologies and delivery models, especially for teams that can scale without adding headcount at the same rate as revenue.
The structural forces pushing the market beyond $100 billion
Digitization has changed how quickly businesses expect feedback. Always-on research programs have made insight more continuous. Analytics demand has pushed research closer to business intelligence and decision support. AI is accelerating parts of the workflow, from data preparation to analysis and reporting. Together, these forces are expanding the market beyond project volume alone.
That matters commercially because growth is increasingly tied to insight delivery systems: the platforms, workflows, and governance that help research move through the business quickly and reliably. Agencies that can deliver that kind of infrastructure become more valuable to clients. Internal teams that invest in it can make a stronger case for research as a strategic capability, not a reporting function.
How AI is reshaping market research industry size and value
AI changes the size story because it changes the value story: faster insight creation can expand demand instead of replacing demand. That’s the important distinction.
If AI only made research cheaper, the market story would be about cost reduction. But when AI helps teams analyze data faster, cover more feedback sources, update reports more easily and give stakeholders quicker access to insight, it changes where research can show up.
- For agency leaders, that creates a commercial opportunity. AI can help agencies increase output, improve responsiveness, and protect margins without turning research into a people-free function. The value doesn’t disappear from human expertise; it shifts toward better design, stronger interpretation, clearer storytelling, and more scalable delivery.
- For research departments, the same shift creates a stronger internal argument for research investment. AI doesn’t remove the need for insight teams – it simply raises the value of the teams that can combine automation with governance, context, and methodological judgement.
AI as a growth multiplier, not a replacement
Greenbook’s 2026 GRIT Insights Practice Report suggests AI is part of mainstream research operations. Across the industry, agentic AI use has converged around three core tasks: analyzing or modeling data, generating reports and dashboards, and preparing or integrating data. And these are not fringe activities. They sit close to the economic engine of research delivery: turning raw data into usable insight.
The strongest signal from GRIT is not simply that agencies are using AI; it’s that the firms using it with clearer operating models appear better positioned commercially. The report highlights service-led suppliers with 101 to 500 FTE as a standout segment, leading service-led revenue growth while also showing high AI governance maturity, including formal AI rules and strong confidence in AI risk minimization.
Agencies that use AI well can respond faster, scale analysis more effectively, support more complex client needs, and increase revenue without increasing headcount one-for-one. That doesn’t make researchers less important; it makes their judgement more valuable, because the work shifts from manual production toward interpretation, quality control, strategy, and actionability.
Our article on AI efficiency in market research takes a deeper look at the practical workflow implications.
What faster insight velocity means for total addressable market
When research takes weeks to move from data collection to actionable output, some business decisions move on without it. Teams rely on existing assumptions, partial data, or whatever answer is easiest to access in the moment.
AI and automation can change that equation.
With suites like Research HX speeding up the research workflow by 50%, the practical addressable market for insight increases because it brings research into moments where it may previously have been seen as too slow, too heavy, or too expensive to commission.
For operational detail on how AI is changing market research analysis, our article on AI-powered market research analysis explains more.
Why declining data quality is creating demand for platform-grade research infrastructure
GRIT points to a clear shift: trust and quality are becoming much more than operational concerns. Sample integrity, fraud detection, respondent authentication, data provenance, synthetic-data validation and AI audit trails are all becoming part of what clients need to feel confident in the insight they’re using.
According to Qualtrics’ 2026 Global Market Research Trends Report, the majority of research leaders have used synthetic data, and 68% of them would consider themselves experts. Used well, it can help teams explore ideas, model scenarios, and reduce pressure on audiences that are difficult or expensive to reach. But it also needs careful handling. If teams can’t explain how synthetic data was created, where it should be used, and where human judgement still needs to sit, it can create confidence without the evidence to support it.
That isn’t just a concern for regulated industries. Any agency or insights team making decisions from research needs to know the data is credible, the method is defensible, and the output can be trusted.
The growth opportunity isn’t AI on its own. It’s AI with the right infrastructure around it: connected data, governed workflows, quality controls, and human expertise. That’s what turns faster research into better research.
What the industry size data means for research agencies and internal teams
Big numbers only matter if they help you make better decisions. This section turns market size into practical strategy.
How agencies are scaling output without proportional headcount growth
For agencies, market growth is only useful if it can be served profitably. That’s why leading agencies are increasingly looking beyond headcount as the main route to scale.
Automation, standardized workflows, integrated AI, stronger security, and better unstructured data analysis all help agencies increase output without increasing delivery costs at the same rate. Research-grade infrastructure changes that. It helps agencies to reuse workflows, accelerate analysis, connect data sources, improve reporting, and protect quality as volume increases.
For more on the operational side of this shift, our article on automation in market research shows how automation is changing research efficiency in practice.
Why the platform you run research on is now a competitive variable
Platform choice now shapes speed, governance, and actionability. That makes it a strategic decision, rather than just a software decision.
Forrester’s 2026 Total Experience Score research makes a useful broader point: growth breaks when experiences fragment. The same logic applies to research. When insight is spread across disconnected tools, teams, and workflows, the business gets a fragmented view of what customers, employees, or markets are really saying. This slows delivery and makes it harder to scale consistently.
A unified research platform helps prevent that. It gives teams a stronger way to manage data, workflows, security, analysis, and reporting in one connected environment. That means insight can move faster, with more consistency and more confidence.
The market research industry is bigger than the headline number suggests – and getting bigger
Broader ecosystem figures show something bigger: a research and insights industry increasingly shaped by software, analytics, automation, AI, and the infrastructure needed to turn data into decisions.
AI is widening the value of research, but infrastructure will decide who captures that value. The teams that can connect data, protect quality, speed up analysis, and make insight easier to use will be better placed to grow with the market, rather than simply keep up with it.
Forsta helps research teams and agencies build that kind of foundation: connected, governed and ready to scale. So as the market grows, your ability to act on insight can grow with it.
See how Forsta helps research agencies scale faster: Speak with an expert | Forsta
FAQs
How big is the global market research industry?
Most current estimates place the global market research industry in the tens of billions, and broader definitions push the total well past $100 billion. The gap usually comes from scope: some counts cover agency services only, while others include software, analytics, and adjacent insights work. If you’re building a business case, use both numbers and explain what each one includes.
Why do market research industry size estimates vary so much?
Not every source is measuring the same market. Some track agency revenue, some track broader research departments’ spend, and others bundle in platforms, analytics, and automation. That difference can make two credible headline numbers look miles apart.
Is the market research industry growing or declining?
The market research industry is not in broad decline, although some traditional methods are under pressure. Growth is shifting toward faster, digital, and AI-assisted approaches, which expands the value of both agencies and enterprise insights teams. In plain English: the work is changing, but demand for trusted insight is still rising.
Will AI replace market research analysts?
Probably not, and that’s the wrong question anyway. AI may help researchers analyze open-ended responses, summarize patterns, and speed up reporting, but human judgment still matters for design, context, quality, and actionability. The bigger opportunity is augmentation: strong platforms let teams do more without turning insight into a black box.
What does market research industry size mean for your business case?
The numbers tell a clear story: market research is not a niche function; it is core business infrastructure operating at a significant commercial scale. For agencies, industry-scale supports investment in automation and platform infrastructure without requiring proportional headcount growth to justify the investment. For research departments, the same data helps make the case to finance and marketing leadership that speed, governance, and data quality are now competitive variables, not optional upgrades.