CEO Reflection September 2025: The End of Empathy in MRX?
CEO Monthly Reflection | September 3, 2025
By: Terence McCarron, CEO & Founder
Throughout the 2020s, a huge buzzword in MRX has been “Empathy”. It has actually become a rallying cry for how to discuss what our industry delivers. It really does seem to add value everywhere in a human-centric discipline.
- Empathy for the clients we support.
- Empathy for the MRX Employees doing the work.
- Empathy for the consumers we are studying.
- Empathy in company culture.
- Empathy in leadership strategy.
- Empathy as a change management tool.
- Empathy as a scale strategy.
This mantra suited us as individuals quite well too. In my LinkedIn network, I found at least 1,000 industry colleagues who highlight their Empathy chops.
Connections have self-branded as:
- Empathy Enthusiasts
- Empathy Champions
- Empathy Activists
- Empathy Growth leaders
- Empathy Advocates
- Empathy Leaders
You get my point. Our industry took on this label as a core definition of our shared work. We owned it like absolute champs too. How can you not feel good about it? And yet….
There’s a common industry conversation that sounds like this: “Will AI just replace everyone?”
Our space is flooded with many new companies promising to “Disrupt Market Research” with AI automation. The promises are that it can do everything in the process – survey writing, programming, respondents, analysis, and reporting. Most are built by a small team of 5 or less who have never spent a day in this space. Yet, in 12 months, with $1+ million in funds, they were able to replace a $100 billion+ sector? Because, you know, AI!
My bias is this: AI cannot produce Empathy. Go have the chat in your favorite AI tool. It will inform you that it can process the definition of empathy and likely produce responses that appear empathetic. But it cannot BE empathetic. Even if it doesn’t know the difference.
As we debate the “AI replacing Researchers” paradigm, should we instead ask ourselves: Are we ready to say goodbye to Empathy? Is that the disruption end-clients want?
What do you think?
Is our discipline a pursuit of human understanding in a business context?
Or is it a patchwork collection of tasks?
How you answer that question set should absolutely dictate the next steps for your business or your career.
For me? I see the need for both automation and empathy in our industry. It’s important to know which things belong in which bucket. I like to focus on defining actions along this line: Human Value vs. Rote & Repetitive. At OpinionRoute, we automate the Rote & Repetitive. The goal is to free up the people to think critically and connect with clients on their needs. To me, why are we doing this if not to better understand and help others? There’s real fulfilment to be had in the toil and the ultimate understanding.
So, let’s embrace AI — but with conscious limits. Let’s define our intentional philosophies here. More than anything, let’s keep Empathy as our industry calling card.
Reach out today if you’re curious how AI can aid the human process, not replace it.