At TechMarketView, we're not in denial. We know this is the question some organisations are asking.
And there will be some who decide that's the route they'll go down. They’ll decide to use their market intelligence budget to buy AI tokens.
AI sounds so confident. So believable. The output looks good enough to put in front of your CXO. If you don't care about accuracy, about nuances, about opinion and thought beyond what is readily available and often regurgitated multiple times, then you might be happy to go with it.
But here's what happens when you "just ask AI."
The expert advantage
With our deep industry knowledge, we're able to root out the fluff and hallucinations that AI research tools can generate. Because we know what we're looking for. We know the reality. We know what to question. We have the context. We have our ear to the ground.
If you don't know the industry inside and out, you won't know if what AI delivers to you is anywhere close to making sense.
We're extensive users of AI ourselves – constantly evaluating new tools and capabilities as they emerge. These technologies are brilliant for speeding up desk research and helping our analysts cover more ground, more quickly. We're not standing still. As AI evolves, so do we. But here's what we've learned: when we question those AI outputs, we are regularly told, "You're right to question that." We understand when AI tools (insert your one of choice) are confidently wrong about UK tech market dynamics because we've been tracking these companies and markets for years.
Phil Fersht, CEO of analyst firm HFS, recently wrote about how the analyst industry needs to save itself from AI obliteration (see here). His prescription? Be authentic. Lose the jargon. Invest in real relationships with buyers, not just vendors. Dig deeper than the press releases. He's brave enough to call out the threat because, like us, he believes his firm offers what others don't. We couldn't agree more with his diagnosis – in fact, these principles have always been at the heart of TechMarketView. We've never been about regurgitating vendor marketing, hiding behind buzzwords, or sugarcoating the sometimes challenging realities. We're about genuine insight from genuine relationships.
What AI can't give you
Yes, we cover press releases – but our daily UKHotViews adds the opinion and context that makes it valuable. Yes, we create vendor comparisons – but they're built on years of tracking the companies, not cobbled together from web searches.
Our differentiating value comes through a combination of published research and tailored advisory, built on three things AI simply cannot provide – our 3Ds:
Data: Our proprietary datasets are built from weeks of painstaking primary research – company financials, market sizing, and estimates based on granular knowledge that isn't available publicly. We have data going back to 2008.
Depth: Decades of experience across our analyst team, enriched by hundreds of conversations annually (many off-the-record). This gives us intelligence that shapes genuine market understanding.
Disruption: We see through the hype because we've watched technologies rise and fall. We know which "revolutionary" innovations are genuinely market-changing and which are just well-marketed iterations.
Why relationships matter
Real insight comes from human connections, from understanding context that was never written down, from recognising patterns across private conversations. It comes from analysts who, as Fersht advocates, dig deeper, speak plainly, and invest in genuine relationships across the ecosystem.
AI isn't doing primary research. It must get its information from somewhere. When these research tools scan the web, we sometimes see TechMarketView data reflected at us – but it can't access the analysis behind our paywall, the off-the-record intelligence from our conversations, or the proprietary datasets we've spent decades building.
TechMarketView: enabling smart decisions
AI is transforming how we work, not replacing the work itself. It's a powerful research assistant, but it can't conduct primary research, build trusted relationships, or provide the privileged insights that drive smart decisions. The value we bring is much deeper than words on paper.
For those navigating digital transformation or making investment decisions in the UK tech market, the question isn't "Why not just ask AI?"
It's "Can you afford to base critical decisions on recycled public information?"
For a complex future, you need more than confident-sounding answers. You need the view that matters.
Get in touch, we’d love to hear your views: info@techmarketview.com.
Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '08:45'