What Esomar's latest rankings reveal about the growing value of historical research

Every year, Esomar's Top Insights Companies report generates discussion about rankings. Which companies moved up? Who made an acquisition? Which firms posted the fastest growth?

This year's report also highlights a broader shift across the industry. Research software now represents an estimated 41% of global insights industry turnover, ahead of traditional market research at 36%. Software companies also continued to outpace the growth of traditional research during 2025, with digital data analytics among the fastest-growing segments. These numbers are indicative of how organizations are now using market research.

Organizations are building libraries, not projects

For many years, research projects had a fairly clear endpoint. A study was completed, findings were presented and the report joined the growing collection of previous work. Some programs, such as brand tracking and customer experience measurement, have always been designed to continue over many years, but today's organizations are running more studies across more teams, suppliers and business functions than ever before. Innovation projects, concept testing, campaign evaluation, customer feedback and ad testing all add to that body of knowledge.

The result is that many organizations have accumulated years, and sometimes decades, of research. Very little of it has lost its value, but much of it has become harder to find. Ask whether the business has explored a particular customer question before and someone will usually remember that a study exists. Locating it is another matter. It may be stored in a supplier portal, buried in a shared drive, attached to an old PowerPoint presentation or sitting in a system that only one former team member knew how to access.

As those collections continue to grow, organizations are beginning to view historical research less as an archive and more as an asset that should continue informing business decisions long after the original project has closed.

Research becomes more useful when it can be connected

Software investment isn't only about launching surveys or building dashboards. Organizations are also looking for ways to organize years of research so today's business questions can benefit from yesterday's work.

A concept test completed two years ago may provide context for a new product launch, while customer satisfaction results can help explain changes seen in a long-running brand tracker. Looking across innovation studies from different markets may reveal patterns that never appear when each project is viewed in isolation.

This is the problem Harmoni was built to address. Long before AI became part of every software demonstration, Infotools focused on helping organizations bring research together in one place so historical and current studies could be explored as a connected body of knowledge rather than as isolated projects.

AI has made historical research even more valuable

The rapid growth of AI has added another reason for organizations to revisit how their research is stored.

Much of the discussion around AI focuses on generating summaries or answering questions. But what we sometimes forget is that the quality of those answers depends on the quality and accessibility of the information available to the model. If historical studies are spread across disconnected systems, locked inside static reports or stored in separate vendor portals, AI has very little context to work with.

When research is centralized, however, years of customer knowledge become searchable. Teams can compare findings across studies, identify trends over time and answer new questions without relying on a single project to provide every answer.

Esomar's report also identifies digital data analytics as one of the fastest-growing segments in the industry, suggesting organizations are investing in technologies that help them work with research after it has been collected rather than treating every study as a standalone project.

Looking beyond the next study

Organizations have already invested heavily in understanding their customers. The question is whether that knowledge is still easy to find when the next business question comes along.

Harmoni was designed to keep research working long after a project closes by bringing historical and current studies together in one searchable environment. When teams can see years of evidence in one place instead of searching through portals, reports and shared drives, they're able to spend less time looking for information and more time using it.

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