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Rival Technologies Launches Rival Labs to Pioneer Future Tech and Innovation in Conversational Research

Dedicated Lab works with leading brands to develop AI and future tech use cases that will drive agile, impactful research

NEW YORK & VANCOUVER, BC - 17 July 2024 – Rival Technologies, the world leader in insight communities and conversational research, today announced the launch of Rival Labs. As a new division, the Lab will drive innovation through rapid experimentation on the company’s already robust conversational research platform.

Comprised of seasoned researchers, developers, and AI experts, the Lab’s mandate is to test and identify new features and solutions that can help executives, marketers, and research leaders uncover insights faster. The Lab is also collaborating with forward-thinking companies like ŌURA for a few initiatives before bringing them to market.

“Launching our insight community on the Rival platform has allowed us to increase our capacity for research and contributed invaluable insights to our overall business strategy,” says Kati LaBeaume, Director of Consumer Insights & Brand Strategy at ŌURA. “Rival consistently delivers on its product roadmap and has introduced several innovative consumer research tools, such as their AI Summarizer. The power of AI in the tech space is undeniable, and I’m thrilled to be partnering with Rival Labs to test additional AI developments that allow us to unlock deeper consumer insights.”    

Agility is a key tenet of how Rival Labs runs, which is why it will run various proofs of concept that are standalone by nature and can also create value when integrated with the Rival platform.

“Challenged with delivering high-quality insights faster with less resources, marketing and insight leaders today are recognizing that it’s time for change,” says Andrew Reid, CEO and Founder of Rival Technologies. “We launched Rival Labs to push the boundaries in AI and future tech and help our customers stay ahead of the curve. Set up to be agile, this team will enable us to experiment in a systematic and iterative fashion and deliver innovation seamlessly both for our customers and the respondents that participate in their research.”

Dale Evernden, a Founding Partner at Rival Technologies, will be leading Rival Labs as the new Head of Innovation.

"Iteration is the fuel of innovation: every cycle of experimentation brings power to discovery and growth,” Evernden remarks. “By embracing the unknown and learning from each attempt, we transform curiosity into breakthrough solutions. In every experiment lies a step forward, a chance for improvement, a refinement toward the making of something extraordinary.”

Since its launch, Rival Labs has already undertaken important innovations, including:

  • AI Tone Refinement – AI-driven recommendations to enhance the tone and style of surveys, making them more natural and conversational.
  • AI Summarizer – Provides quicker insights from unstructured qualitative data and video open-ends, saving time, effort, and money.
  • AI Probing – AI-powered follow-up to qualitative open-ended questions helps address brief or less thoughtful responses, making it easier to derive meaningful insights.
  • AI Thoughtfulness Scores – Evaluates the thoughtfulness of open-ended survey responses by assigning scores based on various criteria. These include the depth of insight, relevance, specificity, clarity, coherence, originality, critical thinking, emotional and empathetic engagement, breadth of consideration, use of supporting evidence, and constructiveness with AI.
  • Scripting Co-pilot – A sophisticated conversational agent designed to assist researchers in debugging and developing intricate research scripts on the Rival platform, enhancing both efficiency and precision in their workflows.

Kati LaBeaume from ŌURA will join Rival’s Andrew Reid for a presentation at the 2024 Quirk’s Event in New York to talk about Oura’s Inner Circle community and share about her experience testing Rival’s new proof of concept on AI Probing. Rival is exhibiting at the event in Booth 419, alongside its sister company, Reach3 Insights, an award-winning market research and consulting firm.

Rival Tech plans to share innovations coming out of Rival Labs on a regular basis, and is inviting research leaders to follow the company’s LinkedIn page for regular updates: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rival-technologies/

About Rival Technologies:

Rival Technologies is a pioneer of conversational market research technology and the leading authority on insight communities globally. Our platform transforms conventional surveys into personalized research experiences that emulate the way people communicate today. Built by a team with over 30 years of deep research experience, our platform brings both the voice of the customer and market into the boardroom to answer essential business questions. Rival’s suite of conversational research solutions is amplified by the power of AI to drive higher response rates, boost engagement, and accelerate time-to-insights. Our customers get faster, richer, and more authentic insights with less time and effort.

Rival Tech is used by some of the most innovative research teams in the world, including Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark, Dell Technologies, and Land O’ Lakes. For more information, please visit rivaltech.com.