Turning Consumer Signal Trails into Lovable Products with Russell Evans (#34)

Russell Evans, Principal at ZS, shares how he built Atlas - an AI-powered consumer insight platform - from inside a global consulting firm.

When traditional research methods broke under the scale of 60,000 interviews, Russell and his team engineered a new way to extract insights from the signal trails consumers leave across product reviews, social media, and online behavior.

This conversation explores the intersection of intrapreneurship, AI innovation, and consumer intelligence - from discovering that people use mini marshmallows as coffee sweetener to rebuilding how brands bring lovable products to market.

What You'll Learn:

• ​Why 60,000 consumer interviews led to building something entirely new
• ​How to find "unknown unknowns" hiding in consumer signal trails
• ​The difference between curated data and black box AI approaches
• ​Using AI to design products from consumer "Lego blocks"
• ​Navigating intrapreneurship inside a 14,000-person consulting firm
• ​Why clients wanted service over another tool
• ​Balancing AI speed with human decision-making capacity
• ​The industry shift from pilots to actual adoption
• ​How AI search is changing brand strategy

Chapter Markers:

(1:15) Introduction and Welcome

(2:47) From Toyota and Honda to Consumer Brands

(3:39) What is ZS and How They Work

(7:36) The 60,000 Interview Problem

(11:03) Building Atlas: Engineering Consumer Intelligence

(14:10) The Marshmallow Discovery: Unknown Unknowns

(18:00) Curated Data vs. Black Box AI

(23:26) Intrapreneurship Within a Large Organization

(28:03) Client Adoption: Learnings and Roadblocks

(31:11) New Product Development with Consumer Lego Blocks

(36:03) AI Search and Brand Positioning

(40:26) From Pilots to Integration

(42:51) What Everyday Innovation Means

Guest:

Russell Evans - Principal , ZS

Consumer insights and innovation leader with two decades of experience helping brands understand consumers and bring better products to market. Russell led the development of Atlas, an AI-powered platform that extracts actionable insights from consumer signal trails at scale.

Connect with Russell and ZS:

• ​ZS: zs.com
• ​Atlas Intelligence: zsatlasintelligence.com
• ​

Key Takeaways:

• ​Unknown unknowns are your competitive edge - consumers leave signal trails if you know where to look
• ​Encode expertise into AI systems rather than automating around it
• ​Sometimes technology enables better service delivery, not a standalone product
• ​You can build faster than organizations can absorb - design for adoption, not just speed
• ​Innovation is often intelligent recombination of known valuable elements
• ​The market is shifting from AI pilots to actual process integration

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