We welcome Alex Charlton, True Stories, to this Pitch Perfect.
An LLM is a plausibility engine, not a truth engine. It hands you the most convincing-sounding answer, not necessarily the true one. Point it at your qual transcripts and it works from whatever it happens to surface – there is no stratified sampling across your dataset, no language balancing stopping the Spanish groups being drowned out by the English ones. What comes back is the middle of the distribution, fluently written, with the odd, difficult, interesting participant quietly gone.
Even qual tools that do promise stratified sampling, simply place similar quotes in piles, then label the piles. This is data summarisation, not the analysis our clients pay us for. And then there’s the question of how we combine our own (human) intelligence with the artificial intelligence we’re working with. This is a minefield in and of itself.
None of this can be fixed by better prompting. The fix has to live in the architecture around the model.
By joining this session, expect a working demonstration, some lessons learnt along the way, and a sharper set of questions to put to any vendor who tells you their tool “understands” your data.
Alex Charlton
Alex Charlton is founder and Managing Director of True Stories. He specialises in qual research and previously founded two London-based insight agencies, Essential Research and Craft. Frustrated that the AI tools arriving in research were built by engineers who had never moderated a group, he spent nearly two years building the alternative himself – writing the platform alongside AI rather than briefing a development team, so that every architectural decision was made by someone who knows what good qual research looks like. True Stories launched in January 2026 and is now used by insight teams across four continents. He works from Medellín, Colombia.
True Stories
True Stories is an AI-powered analysis platform for qualitative research. It was built by a career qual researcher, and the design assumption throughout is that the researcher stays in charge: the platform does the reading, the retrieval and the structured analysis, and you lead the analysis, assisted by AI.
Where other AI tools summarise data, True Stories analyses: drawing on 200+ marketing, consumer psychology and behavioural science frameworks to build a bespoke analysis pathway for each project. Analyses draw evenly across your data rather than sampling whatever the model finds most quotable, work in your participants’ original language without translating the nuance out, and carry confidence ratings. You can interrogate any output conversationally, push on it, then fold the conversation back into a revised analysis. Once analysis is complete, your project reports are generated automatically and include: a written mini-report, a story-driven debrief narrative, and an editable PowerPoint deck.
True Stories: Human Intelligence. Amplified.
A dynamic, accomplished customer-centric Account Manager who’s spent the past 5 years at QuestionPro helping researchers, independent consultants and enterprise clients excel in understanding their markets, making better informed decisions whilst addressing complex insight projects.
With 15 years in the market research industry, Mari Smith brings a unique blend of operational expertise and commercial acumen. Over the past four years, she has transitioned from an operational background to a commercial role, leveraging her deep industry knowledge to build and expand InnovateMR + Ivy Exec’s EU business. Mari has worked with various clients—including MR agencies, consultancies, private equity firms, end clients, and media agencies—across quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Her experience in streamlining operations, scaling business growth, and delivering client-focused solutions makes her a key driver of success at InnovateMR + Ivy Exec.
With over 15 years of experience in client and new business development within the market research industry, Monica Kaur specialises in onboarding new clients, developing client relationships, and driving revenue growth. At InnovateMR + Ivy Exec, Monica partners with agencies, consultancies and brands to provide both quantitative and qualitative solutions across fieldwork and full-service research studies.
With over 25 years of market research experience, David Hickson specializes in data integrity, panel management, and research technology. As Client Director for EMEA at InnovateMR + Ivy Exec, he partners with agencies and brands to refine their research strategies through robust sampling techniques, fraud detection measures, and AI-driven automation.
Michael is a Director of StreetLife, a leading UK-based fieldwork agency specialising in quantitative face-to-face market research. The company has operations in Bexleyheath, Kent, and Manchester, alongside regional hubs right across the UK. Since its establishment in 2011, StreetLife has provided UK and global companies with a wide range of fieldwork services, including exit interviews, central location tests, in-home interviewing, mystery shopping, and door-to-door and on-street interviews.
