Congratulations to the finalists of the Tony Cowling Foundation Innovation Award 2026. Following an exceptional standard of entries from around the world, we are delighted to announce the finalists for this year’s Award, recognising organisations and collaborations developing bold new ideas that are shaping the future of market research, insights and data analytics. The winner will be announced by Josep Montserrat, Chair of the Tony Cowling Foundation, during the prestigious ESOMAR Congress in Valencia, Spain, on 2 September 2026.
We sincerely thank all our finalists on reaching this stage, celebrate for their outstanding contribution to innovation within our industry and look forward to working together to forge breakthrough initiatives bringing ideas to societal and commercial reality.
2026 Finalists
REPDATA
A Research Quality Innovation for the Age of Agentic AI
Microsoft
Compounding Intelligence: How Microsoft is Creating a New Paradigm for Market Research Practice
Wortya
Filter, Not Oracle: The Honest Case for Synthetic Users and Digital Twins
Humana & Coca-Cola
Future Digital Twins, and the Timing Problem Nothing Else Solves
Brand Genetics & Unilever
Insight in the Foothills of the Singularity
The Tony Cowling Market Research Innovation Award is about more than recognising excellence. It celebrates ideas with the potential to transform how our profession understands people, generates insight and creates value in an era of unprecedented technological change.
This year’s finalists reflect a remarkable breadth of thinking, from research quality in the age of AI and new intelligence frameworks, to synthetic users, digital twins and the future relationship between human expertise and machine capability.
The overall winner will be announced at the ESOMAR Annual Congress Awards Dinner on September 2nd.
Congratulations to all our finalists this year for their outstanding contributions and for helping shape the future of market research.
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