Insights from the Analytics & Data Science Committee

Attendees at a February 2026 meeting of the ANA’s Analytics and Data Science Committee heard from analytics leaders on the topics of balancing data discovery with business context; harmonizing omnichannel insights; and strengthening AI through high quality, well governed data.

Ipsos’s Caroline Hewett gave a broad overview of the key differences between personabots, digital twins, and insights agents and shared a few best practices marketers should keep in mind when using all three.

Columbia University’s Olivier Toubia outlined his work testing digital twins as a potential counterbalance for AI bias, outlining the accuracy gaps and distortions he found, and some potential ways marketers can address these issues.

During a session at a December 2025 ANA Data Enablement Lab, Consumr.ai and Prophet discussed uses for digital AI twins.

The universe of search is expanding as consumers (and their agents) use generative AI “answer engines” to find answers to their often-complex questions, queries, and prompts. With this exponential growth, marketers have a lot on their plates to ensure their content is discoverable and cited by the AI/LLMs.

Bank of America shared its enterprise framework for safely implementing AI across 200,000 employees, focusing on process efficiency, governance structures, and strategic deployment in highly regulated environments.

During a February 2025 meeting of the ANA’s Analytics and Data Science Committee, Lenovo described some of the ways in which it has leveraged automation to dramatically improve the efficiency of its business intelligence function.

In this session, InfoSum took offered marketers insights into basic privacy principles, including the current state of cookie-less play, the importance and sensitivity of first-party data, the types of privacy-enhancing technology that exists in market, and how it all comes together within a data clean room.

During a session at a September 2024 meeting of ANA’s Analytics and Data Science Committee, Stephen H. Yu offered a roadmap for achieving business impact through analytics.

Arvind Balasundaram (director of commercial insights and analytics at Regeneron) and Doug Brooks (EVP and chief client officer at Ipsos MMA) shared how they have successfully implemented an omnichannel, unified attribution capability while navigating each of these challenges.

Acxiom addressed the requirements and benefits of a connected analytics ecosystem, noting that such platforms are especially critical for consumer-focused organizations, organizations undertaking both digital and non-digital marketing campaigns, and companies in regulated industries.

Imteaz Ahamed, director of performance marketing at Reckitt, discussed how Reckitt has managed to deploy a data clean room solution to co-mingle brand first party data with retail data, to drastically improve ad efficiency.

TJ Sizemore discussed leading athletic footwear retailer ASICS' approach to A/B testing and how a new company KPI was created, further amplifying the value of A/B testing as an organizational strategy.

Trent Huxley addressed the importance of a commercial view of data and analytics and what is lost if spending is prioritized based on siloed metrics.

James Slezak, CEO at and co-founder of Swayable, discussed the concept of RCT pre-testing, including what it is, how some brands have used it, and what your team can do to get started.

Acxiom’s Mara Kelly discussed how AI can make marketers better at their jobs. She covered timelines and processes for how to start small with AI while thinking big and how to create an AI program that results in meaningful business impact.

Pernod Ricard leveraged a marketing measurement solution to get a total market view of its 600 plus brands, its competitors, and its on-premise footprint.

Realtor.com explained how it put in place a program to measure customer satisfaction (CSAT) with its rental and homebuying website and app, and how the measurement program’s findings have helped to guide its efforts to improve those platforms.

At a June 2023 meeting of the ANA’s Analytics and Data Science Committee, the Media Rating Council identified emerging challenges to effective measurement and some of the steps that it and markers are taking to try to meet those challenges.

Devon DeBlasio from InfoSum explained how data clean rooms are quickly becoming a must-have solution for the sustainability and sanctity of data-driven advertising.