Yuan Ren

Generative AI democratization in consumer research: broader participation brings new voices into the data ecosystem. Today, a consumer researcher beginning a new project may start not with a database, but with a generative AI system. Within seconds, a structured framework emerges. Literature streams are synthesized, research questions are articulated, and potential hypotheses are outlined. The efficiency is undeniable. Yet Huang and Rust argue that efficiency is not the central issue. In The...

How GenAI Transforms Qualitative Data Analysis Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is reshaping qualitative consumer culture research by introducing new efficiencies while raising epistemological tradeoffs across theoretical, embodied, empirical, and historical dimensions. In other words, when consumer culture researchers upload interview transcripts, fieldnotes, or archival materials into large language models (LLMs), what changes is not merely research efficiency. Epp and Humphreys...

The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence is redefining how consumer and marketing researches are conducted. When a model can replicate the consumer research processes of 35 top-tier journal articles within minutes, are we still engaging in “human-led science”? A study by Yoo, Haenlein, and Hewett, published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science , addresses precisely this question: Is AI merely transforming research tools, or is it reshaping research...