Artificial intelligence is transforming how businesses collect and process information. Customer relationship management platforms, predictive analytics, behavioral metrics, and real-time dashboards now generate unprecedented volumes of insight, while the research found that every industry is increasing AI adoption and that industries most exposed to AI have experienced three times higher growth in revenue per employee. Yet stronger technology has not automatically translated into stronger customer engagement or experiences. According to a survey, 70% of executives say customer expectations are evolving faster than their organizations can adapt.
According to Dr. Susan Mazur-Stommen, founder of Indicia Consulting, the challenge is rarely a lack of information. It is a lack of understanding. An anthropologist who has spent more than two decades researching culture, behavior, and sustainability, Mazur-Stommen established Indicia Consulting to help organizations apply ethnographic research to business decisions, particularly in areas such as sustainable energy, emerging technologies, and customer behavior.
From her perspective, data explains what people do, while anthropology helps explain why they do it. “All research begins with theory. Data without interpretation is simply information waiting to become understanding,” she says. “AI can improve decision-making, but only when the systems are built on an accurate understanding of human behavior rather than behavioral assumptions.”
That philosophy underpins what Mazur-Stommen explains as Indicia Consulting’s “Swiss Army Knife” methodology, an integrated research approach that brings together multiple sources of insight rather than relying on a single dataset. According to her, the consultancy combines focus groups, stakeholder engagement, in-depth interviews, surveys, and statistical analysis before synthesizing those findings into behavioral models. She explains that this process of triangulating qualitative and quantitative research reveals patterns and motivations that individual research methods often overlook, giving organizations a more complete understanding of how people actually make decisions.
Much of that work focuses on the transition toward cleaner energy and greater heat resilience. As governments and utilities encourage households to adopt electric vehicles, heat pumps, and induction cooking, this process is known as electrification. Mazur-Stommen believes technical innovation alone will not determine success. Human behavior ultimately decides whether new technologies become part of everyday life.
According to Mazur-Stommen, the success of the energy transition will depend as much on human adoption as on technological innovation. She explains that energy transition is ultimately a behavioral challenge because every new technology must fit into the routines, priorities, and realities of the households expected to use it.
She also argues that businesses often misunderstand who actually makes decisions. “Marketing strategies frequently target an individual customer profile, yet anthropology reveals that decisions usually emerge from households, families, neighbourhoods, and broader social networks,” she says. “Kinship matters more than many organizations realize because people negotiate decisions together. Consumers do not live as isolated individuals. They live inside relationships.”
That same human-centred perspective extends well beyond the energy sector. Mazur-Stommen explains that ethnographic research consistently uncovers realities that traditional datasets overlook because it observes how people actually live rather than how organizations assume they live. She notes that understanding households, caregiving responsibilities, financial pressures, and community relationships often reveals behavioral patterns that would remain invisible through surveys or analytics alone.
Mazur-Stommen explains that triangulating qualitative and quantitative research helps organizations move beyond surface-level metrics to understand the motivations, relationships, and lived experiences that ultimately shape decision-making.
Power outages illustrate a similar challenge. “Businesses often measure restoration times and infrastructure performance, while families experience spoiled food, financial hardship, medication concerns, and increased health risks,” Mazur-Stommen says. “Understanding those lived experiences can help organizations design communication strategies and customer programs that better reflect how people actually navigate disruption instead of how businesses assume they do.”
She believes another opportunity already exists inside most organizations. “Companies frequently commission new customer surveys, branding exercises, and research projects while years of existing information remain largely untouched,” she says.
Drawing on her own experience in academia, Mazur-Stommen recalls that years of student evaluations were routinely collected but rarely analyzed, an experience that, from her perspective, reflects how many organizations accumulate information without fully extracting its value. “We do not necessarily need more data,” she says. “What we need is better theory and better analysis of the information organisations already possess.”
Looking ahead, Mazur-Stommen expects anthropology and behavioral science to become increasingly valuable during the earliest stages of product development, when organizations still have the opportunity to shape products around real human needs.
In an era increasingly defined by AI, sustainable energy, and digital transformation, Mazur-Stommen believes organizations will gain their greatest advantage not simply by collecting more information, but by asking better questions about the people behind the data. From her perspective, understanding human behavior before designing products, services, and communication strategies may become one of the most valuable competitive advantages businesses can build.
