Boost Your Research Maturity: Small Steps, Big Impact

A practical guide for teams stuck between asking nothing and asking too late.

Most companies believe they’re insight-driven. But when you zoom in, what you often find is a research function that’s good at big projects, yet missing in the everyday. No time. No budget. No capacity to ask “quick” questions.

That’s not a flaw. It’s a stage.

At Lakmoos, we developed the Research Maturity Model to help organizations understand where they are—and what’s possible next. Think of it like UX maturity or digital transformation: a structured framework that helps teams shift from reactive research to always-on, integrated decision support.

You don’t need to leap from Level 1 to Level 5. In fact, the most successful teams start small. This article is about that: low-effort ways to boost your maturity using AI panels, based on the real challenges companies face at each level.

Level 1: Gut-Driven → Get to First Questions
You rely on instinct, experience, or what worked last time. Research is skipped—not resisted—but because there’s “no time.”

🧪 Try this: Run an AI panel dry test for one idea that would normally go untested. No human respondents. No blockers. Just a first directional signal. Show your team it’s possible to ask, even when there’s no formal study.

🎯 Quick win: Use it for pitch decks, early concepts, or that one stakeholder who always says “we don’t do research for this kind of thing.”

Level 2: Project-Based → Make Follow-Ups Easy
You do research. Usually big, expensive, and too late for iteration. If someone forgets to ask a question, it stays forgotten.

🧪 Try this: Rerun a missed question from your last project using an AI panel. Ask the thing you forgot to ask. Or test how the audience reacts a few weeks post-launch.

🎯 Quick win: Position it as a post-mortem enhancement, not a challenge to the original project.

Level 3: Embedded → Cover the Gaps
Research is trusted and embedded but only for “big” decisions. Smaller ones get rushed, skipped, or guessed.

🧪 Try this: Pair AI and human panels. Keep your core survey or qual work, and use Lakmoos to test edge cases, explore other segments, or run directional pre-checks.

🎯 Quick win: Create a protocol: for every big project, 10% budget goes to AI exploration. No extra delay, more answers.

Level 4: Distributed → Bring Back the Map
Anyone can ask questions now. But quality is inconsistent, and no one sees the big picture.

🧪 Try this: Deploy AI agents as question coaches. Let them help teams frame better research tasks, sense-check bias, and consolidate feedback.

🎯 Quick win: Start with product managers or designers under pressure. They don’t want to learn research—they want good questions fast.

Level 5: Continuous → Automate the Thinking Loop
You’re running dashboards, trackers, and tests weekly. The machine is humming. But speed ≠ insight.

🧪 Try this: Use Lakmoos as your core engine: combine AI respondents with AI agents to keep insights flowing 24/7. Not just more data, but better context and synthesis across functions.

🎯 Quick win: Replace monthly report decks with a live “what changed?” feed—updated daily, monitored by your AI panel.

Download the full whitepaper here →

Research Maturity Is a System. AI Helps You Move.

At every level, there’s something blocking research: no time, no headcount, no formal process. Lakmoos exists to remove those blockers, not by replacing human researchers, but by helping teams ask questions more often, more affordably, and more confidently.

Want to check where you are?
Explore the full Research Maturity Model here →

Want a custom boost plan?
Book a 15-min AI panel test run →