How we use Artificial Intelligence

What does Generative AI add to traditional forecasting?

Traditional trend forecasting is typically developed using the Delphi Method, the gathering and analysis of qualitative and quantitative research, expert interviews, foresight methodologies, scenario planning, clustering of weak signals, consumer insight, and market research to name a few.

Generative AI is a useful addition to these methods and can be used to collate and interrogate the findings from each of these methods to produce new outcomes.

How we ensure accuracy and protect our clients

Generative AI is good at gathering information, but it needs to be fact-checked for accuracy, credibility and relevance. Our team of trend experts verifies the dates of published reports and data, assesses the credibility of sources, and confirms the accuracy of claims before incorporating any AI-generated content into our research.

AI models represent only a portion of the diverse sources we pull from to forecast future trends, ensuring that we have the most up-to-date and accurate references informing our research.

• We do not input any confidential client information into AI models
• We do not input any of our confidential trend information or Intellectual Property into AI models, ensuring that the information you receive from us is unique 

What happens when there’s an unforeseen event?

It’s difficult for humans and AI to anticipate unforeseen, Black Swan events like natural disasters.

AI models rely on historical data, meaning they struggle in the absence of variables or factors that weren’t present. Scenario planning is a method commonly used by futurists to anticipate a wide range of potential future events.

Successful trend forecasting requires a team of trend experts to anticipate unforeseen events. Through scenario planning, the TrendBible team draw on intuition, creativity, and a broader understanding of context that goes beyond historical data.

What is the ethical impact of using AI?

At TrendBible, we are committed to our mission to Lead Positive Change. While we acknowledge that AI can bring about positive innovation, we also recognise the environmental and ethical impacts of its use. Although we do not have all the answers to these challenges, we are continuously researching and discussing more ethical practices and alternatives.

The lack of clarity regarding how AI models determine content ownership makes it difficult to credit the creatives’ work that AI models use to inform their outputs.

Due to the ongoing examination of the legalities surrounding AI-generated images, we do not create our own AI images. We will only utilise AI to generate images once we can ensure that the models are based on ethical sources and have obtained full permission from the creators.