Evernden to Lead New Innovation Labs at Rival

Insight communities and conversational research specialist Rival Technologies has launched a new division called Rival Labs, offering to help clients innovate using rapid experimentation on its platform. Rival Founding Partner Dale Evernden will lead the new unit as Head of Innovation.

The Labs' staff of researchers, developers and AI experts will test and identify new features and solutions to help executives, marketers and research leaders uncover insights faster. The new division will also work on new initiatives with external partners including ŌURA, which has already been using Rival's platform for its insight community.

The unit has already worked on a number of innovations including AI-driven refinement of the tone and style of surveys to make them 'more natural and conversational'; an AI Summarizer for unstructured qualitative data and video open-ends; AI Probing, following up qual open-ended questions; Thoughtfulness Scores, assessing the depth of insight, relevance, specificity and other aspects of data; and a Scripting Co-pilot to assist researchers in debugging and developing intricate research scripts on the Rival platform.

'We launched Rival Labs to push the boundaries in AI and future tech', says Rival CEO and founder Andrew Reid, 'and help our customers stay ahead of the curve. Set up to be agile, this team will enable us to experiment in a systematic and iterative fashion and deliver innovation seamlessly both for our customers and the respondents that participate in their research'.

Evernden (pictured) comments: 'Iteration is the fuel of innovation: every cycle of experimentation brings power to discovery and growth. By embracing the unknown and learning from each attempt, we transform curiosity into breakthrough solutions. In every experiment lies a step forward, a chance for improvement, a refinement toward the making of something extraordinary'.

The firm is online at www.rivaltech.com .