The Tony Cowling Foundation is delighted to announce the finalists for the Tony Cowling Foundation Innovation Award 2026, celebrating the organisations and collaborations developing bold new approaches with the potential to shape the future of market research.
Following a rigorous judging process and an exceptionally high standard of entries from around the world, this year’s finalists embody the founding principles of the Tony Cowling Foundation: innovation, inclusion and internationalism.
The 2026 finalists
A Research Quality Innovation for the Age of Agentic AI
Compounding Intelligence: How Microsoft is Creating a New Paradigm for Market Research Practice
Filter, Not Oracle: The Honest Case for Synthetic Users and Digital Twins
Human8 & The Coca-Cola Company
Future Digital Twins, and the Timing Problem Nothing Else Solves
Insight in the Foothills of the Singularity
Recognising ideas with the potential to transform
The Tony Cowling Market Research Innovation Award is about more than recognising excellence. It celebrates ideas with the potential to transform how the 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. Their work explores some of the most important questions facing the sector, from maintaining research quality in the age of AI and developing new intelligence frameworks, to the role of synthetic users, digital twins and the evolving relationship between human expertise and machine capability.
Together, the finalists demonstrate how innovation can strengthen research practice while opening up new possibilities for organisations, researchers and decision-makers around the world.
Winner to be announced at ESOMAR Congress
The overall winner will be announced at the ESOMAR Congress on 2 September in Valencia.
Congratulations to all our finalists for their outstanding contributions and for helping to shape the future of market research.
