--- title: How Manufacturers Can Combine AI and Human Insight to Drive Better Decisions description: Discover how manufacturers can leverage AI alongside human insight to enhance customer understanding and drive meaningful innovation through VOC research. image: https://blog.ams-insights.com/hubfs/1.svg --- - [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/ams_insights) - [Toolkit Login](https://voctoolkit.ams-inc.com/login/) - [Join Us](https://www.ams-inc.com/why-work-at-ams/) - [0 Items](https://ams-insights.com/registration/) [![AMS\_web\_logo\_final](https://blog.ams-insights.com/hubfs/AppliedMarketingScience_June2021/images/AMS_web_logo_final.png)](https://ams-insights.com/) - Services - [Your Business Challenges](https://ams-insights.com/your-business-challenges/) - [Our Solutions](https://ams-insights.com/our-solutions/) - [Who We Help](https://ams-insights.com/who-we-help/) - [Powerful Results](https://ams-insights.com/powerful-results/) - Training - [Train Your Team](https://ams-insights.com/train-your-team/) - [Webinars](https://ams-insights.com/webinars/) - [Public Workshops](https://ams-insights.com/public-workshops/) - Knowledge Center - [Resources](https://ams-insights.com/resources/) - [Insights Blog](https://blog.ams-insights.com/) - [FAQs](https://ams-insights.com/frequently-asked-questions/) - Who We Are - [The AMS Difference](https://ams-insights.com/the-ams-difference/) - [Our Consultants](https://ams-insights.com/our-consultants/) - [Contact Us](https://ams-insights.com/contact-us/) Select Page - Services - [Your Business Challenges](https://ams-insights.com/your-business-challenges/) - [Our Solutions](https://ams-insights.com/our-solutions/) - [Who We Help](https://ams-insights.com/who-we-help/) - [Powerful Results](https://ams-insights.com/powerful-results/) - Training - [Train Your Team](https://ams-insights.com/train-your-team/) - [Webinars](https://ams-insights.com/webinars/) - [Public Workshops](https://ams-insights.com/public-workshops/) - Knowledge Center - [Resources](https://ams-insights.com/resources/) - [Insights Blog](https://blog.ams-insights.com/) - [FAQs](https://ams-insights.com/frequently-asked-questions/) - Who We Are - [The AMS Difference](https://ams-insights.com/the-ams-difference/) - [Our Consultants](https://ams-insights.com/our-consultants/) - [Contact Us](https://ams-insights.com/contact-us/) # How Manufacturers Can Combine AI and Human Insight to Drive Better Decisions Customers are talking in many places, but those conversations do not arrive as a clear picture of what they need. Sales conversations, service records, online reviews, and industry forums can all contain valuable Voice of the Customer (VOC). Even in manufacturing, the growing volume of unstructured data creates an opportunity: how can we uncover the insights hidden in what we already have, then use smarter, targeted VOC research to fill the gaps?  In a recent Manufacturers Alliance article, AMS Principal and Insights for Innovation Practice Lead Kristyn Corrigan explores the role of AI in customer understanding. The opportunity is not simply to analyze more feedback faster. It is to connect customer signals scattered across internal sources and external channels, surface needs that may have gone unnoticed, and identify where deeper exploration is needed. AI can help organize that material and identify potential customer needs at a scale that would be difficult to tackle manually. But existing data is a starting point and rarely provides a complete view of the market. It reflects the customers, interactions, and issues in the moment, and may leave important voices or experiences out. Human researchers need to assess those gaps, check interpretations against the source material, and design focused interviews or observations to understand what is missing and why it matters. Innovation often lies in the in-between: the tension between what customers say and what they do, the workaround buried in a service conversation, or the need that appears only once but points to a larger opportunity. Those details can disappear when analysis becomes a summary of the most common themes. Keeping humans in the loop means probing ambiguity, exploring contradictions, and connecting customer experiences to the decisions a business needs to make. The goal is not to replace customer conversations or automate away judgment. It is to use AI to make more of what we already know, direct new VOC research where it can add the most value, and preserve the nuance that leads to meaningful innovation. **What Could Your Existing Customer Data Be Telling You?** Learn more by watching the webinar “[Supercharge Your VOC: How Supervised Finetuned AI Models are Changing the Game](https://ams-insights.com/webinar/supercharge-your-voc-how-supervised-finetuned-ai-models-are-changing-the-game/)”. Connect with Kristyn Corrigan to explore how to uncover customer needs in the data you already have, where targeted VOC research could fill important gaps, and how to keep human expertise at the center of the process. [![Contact Kristyn](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/2773158/7e7fbf75-5c34-4220-8f47-4ae5f0e88230.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/2773158/7e7fbf75-5c34-4220-8f47-4ae5f0e88230) AMS combines AI-enabled analysis with rigorous VOC methods and experienced researchers to help organizations uncover hidden needs and turn customer understanding into practical innovation decisions. *Read the full article from Manufacturers Alliance:* [*How AI-Powered Customer Voice Is Becoming Manufacturing's New Marketing Engine*](https://www.manufacturersalliance.org/research-insights/how-ai-powered-customer-voice-becoming-manufacturings-new-marketing-engine)*.* **About Kristyn Corrigan** Kristyn Corrigan is a Principal and Practice Lead at AMS, where she leads the firm’s Insights for Innovation practice. She helps leading organizations use VOC research to uncover actionable customer needs and guide stronger product, service, and experience decisions. 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