“Data can only explain the past,” she said. “When there’s no precedent, you have to ground decisions in human truth.”
To address that gap, AnswerLab is exploring approaches that blend qualitative and quantitative research, including digital twins. These AI-powered models can scale insights by pairing human research with client data, allowing teams to simulate and test concepts quicker while maintaining grounded in real behavioral patterns.
Malli cautioned against over-reliance on fully synthetic market research, however, particularly when evaluating physical products or emerging technologies. AI can accelerate research, but it cannot replace the need for contextual human understanding, she said.
Physical space
AnswerLab’s new New York space is built to be not a traditional office, but a collaborative research lab. The agency is remote, with employees across 23 states, but the new physical footprint reflects a need for in-person experimentation.
In addition to hosting clients in the space, AnswerLab will conduct large-scale studies, particularly those involving hardware or emerging technologies that cannot be tested remotely. Malli described it as a way to get closer to real-world simulation when true ethnographic research is too slow, costly, or difficult to scale.
“It wasn’t built to be a place for everybody to come every day,” she said, but an environment that can be configured to simulate real-life settings, allowing researchers to observe behavior in conditions that feel less artificial than a traditional lab.
The shift addresses what Malli calls a persistent fallibility in research environments. Even when studies involve real participants, labs can distort behavior because people are removed from their everyday context and the distractions that shape real decision-making. As new technologies, from AI to hardware, reshape user journeys, she believes the industry must get closer to how people actually live and adopt products.
Moving upstream
AnswerLab sees other UX research firms as its primary competitive set, but Malli identified in-house teams as the company’s biggest competition. As research, strategy, and design become more integrated inside organizations, independent specialists must deliver on breadth and speed.
AnswerLab’s ambition, she said, is to become “the leading agency that defines how humans will experience the world through new technology and AI,” positioning it as a partner to chief product officers, innovation leaders, and design executives, while serving as a bridge to marketing.
“We help pioneering leaders own the unknown,” Malli said, describing a goal of helping organizations move forward with confidence when “there’s no data, no precedent, and no playbook.”
