Why Focus Groups Are Dead (and 1:1 Interviews Are the Future)
The Mad Men era of research is over. Why group dynamics kill truth, and how individualized AI interviews unlock deeper insights.
We've all seen the scene: A room full of people eating donuts, a moderator asking "What do you think of this ad?", and a two-way mirror hiding the executives.
The Focus Group. It’s a staple of traditional market research. And it is fundamentally broken.
The Hippo Effect
In any group of 10 people, 2 people will do 80% of the talking. The quiet introverts—who might be your best customers—stay silent. They nod along with the loud extroverts to avoid conflict. This is Groupthink.
You walk away thinking everyone loves the idea, when really, only "Loud Larry" loved it, and everyone else just wanted to go home.
The Observer Bias
People act differently in front of a crowd. They posture. They want to look smart, rich, or virtuous.
- In a group: "I only buy organic, sustainable kale."
- In private: "I eat Cheetos for dinner."
The Shift to 1:1 at Scale
The only reason focus groups existed was efficiency. It was cheaper to talk to 10 people at once than to do 10 separate interviews.
AI changes the math.
With AI interviewers (like Fieldrun), doing 1,000 separate 1:1 interviews is cheaper than one focus group.
Why 1:1 Wins:
- No Groupthink: The user is alone with the interviewer. Their opinion is their own.
- Deeper Digging: The AI can spend 20 minutes on one user's specific niche use-case. In a focus group, you can't bore the other 9 people to dig into one person's story.
- Honesty: Users confess things to a private digital interface they would never admit to a room of strangers.
Focus groups were a compromise for an analog world. In a digital world, mass-scale 1:1 conversation is the new standard.