Digital transformation is shaping all areas of life – and at the same time opening up new opportunities for empirical market and social research. Digital technologies, especially artificial intelligence, are expanding the possibilities for data collection, creating new analytical approaches and increasing efficiency in research and business processes.
Since its foundation, INTEGRAL has been accompanying the digital transformation processes in Austria. With the AIM – Austrian Internet Monitor – launched in 1996, the institute has the leading market study on the use of digital offerings and the underlying behavioural dynamics. We not only analyse ‘everyday internet’ usage, but also identify new trends, technologies and forms of digital usage at an early stage.
As a long-standing research partner to all major mobile phone providers, we have continuously accompanied the industry through technological upheavals, new business models and changing user needs. Our digital expertise is therefore based on both sound long-term research and decades of project-based practice.
Artificial intelligence opens up a wide range of potential – provided it is used responsibly and under professional supervision. INTEGRAL uses AI specifically for automation and efficiency gains, for example in encoding or data preparation. We also develop innovative AI-supported solutions for our customers: from synthetic samples for hypothesis testing to interactive chatbots that make results intuitively accessible. The decisive factor for us is always that AI provides suggestions and generates new perspectives – the final evaluation, interpretation and approval is always carried out through the human intelligence and expertise of our team.
As part of our lifestyle research, we go beyond the mere use of digital applications to analyse what these diverse possibilities do to our society. The fault lines run right through the Austrian population, between euphoria and scepticism. The decisive factors here are not so much age, income or education, but above all values and lifestyles – as we describe them in the Sinus-Milieus.
