AI Fundamentals for Qualitative Researchers (w/ The AI Collective)
Are you a Qualitative Researcher who feels overwhelmed by the AI tools and workflows to help get your work done?
AI is everywhere these days. It's built in to qualitative research platforms and tools we use everyday like PowerPoint, Excel, Word and more. And there's Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, NotebookLM, Perplexity, Pocket, and more AI tools you may not know about.
Curious? Of course you are! As a researcher it's in your DNA.
AI Fundamentals for Qualitative Research Professionals is the workshop for you!
Stop treating AI like an over-hyped search engine or your best friend. This fast-paced, hands-on workshop is designed specifically for Qualitative Research Professionals to replace slow, manual administrative tasks with custom, automated business execution.
Join us at Improving in Alpharetta for an evening of highly practical, step-by-step systems training.
🗓 Monday, July 20, 5:30-8:30
Location: Improving - Alpharetta, GA
Registration: Free admission (Strictly capped at 60 seats)
What You Will Learn to Do:
- Set up your portable knowledge base with personal context layer to eliminate generic, flat responses
- Automate meeting summaries and capture actionable intelligence automatically
- Turn handwritten notes into useful text with summaries and action steps defined
- Run deep analysis on massive local document files and client data sets without privacy risks
- Create grounded synthetic personas and digital twins for hard to reach respondents
- Build persistent, collaborative AI workspaces that manage complex project timelines
Who This Is For:
This workshop is optimized for active Qualitative Research Professionals roles including: UX Researcher, Qualitative Consultant, Brand Planner, Ethnographer, Market Research Director, Product Development.
Anyone involved with customer discovery, unstructured data analysis, conducting interviews with and observations of customers, prospects, and key stakeholders.
Agenda:
5:30 PM: Doors Open, Pizza & Peer Networking
6:00 PM: Part 1 - The Modern AI Ecosystem & Context Layer Strategy
6:45 PM: Part 2 - Technical Automations & Real-World Live Dives
7:15 PM: Part 3 - Custom Tool Assembly & Implementation Run 8:00 PM: 7-Day Personal Action Plans
Bring your laptop, bring your immediate workflow challenges, and leave with a functional personal operating system.
Mark Michelson, Founder, Threads Research & Strategy, Stitchs AI Contulting & Training, The AI Collective Atlanta Chapter/ Regional Director and Head of Global Revenue at Leadership
This workshop is curated and facilitated by veteran qualitative researcher, Mark Michelson. Mark is a lifelong qualitative research with 42 Years in Marketing Research. Founder/CEO of Threads Marketing Research & Strategy in 2009, Founder/CEO of Michelson & Associates, Inc. from 1984-2004.
Mark spent 42 years building marketing research companies from the ground up. Seven companies. Three successful exits. Offices in 22 countries. Clients including IBM, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Walmart, Kroger, The Coca-Cola Company, GM, Nissan, Ford, GSK, Pfizer, Ritz-Carlton, AGCO, John Deere, and the American Cancer Society.
"I know what it takes to run a research operation because I’ve done it – managing 40 full-time employees and 150,000 independent contractors, billing $10M annually, and delivering insights that drove real decisions for some of the world’s largest brands."
Mark also co-founded four trade associations, including the Mystery Shopping Professionals Association, and served on the QRCA board for a decade.
Mark has produced hundreds of conferences, workshops, and training programs across North America, Asia, Europe, and South America. In 2016 Mark created CX Forums, which produced conferences in the US including Atlanta, Nashville, Tampa, Cincinatti, Chicago, Boston, NYC, Washington DC, Austin, MInneapolis and Dallas, These conferences focused on the customer experience industry and featured TED Talks style speakers sourced in local markets
Now Mark focuses on what he believes is the most important skill gap in research today: knowing how to use AI effectively, ethically, and without losing the human judgment that makes research actually useful.
Mark focuses on teaching marketing researchers, CX design and management professionals, and c-suite executives how to use AI tools the way practitioners use them – with real workflows, grounded data, and no hype. His classes cover synthetic personas, digital twins, AI-assisted research design and analyses, and how to use grounded tools like NotebookLM and Perplexity for serious research work.
Mark founded Stitchs AI Training and Solutions in 2024 to deliver this training through live online masterclasses and in-person executive cohorts. His synthetic personas session was voted favorite session by attendees at ProductCamp Atlanta 2025.
Mark also serves as Southeast Region Director for The AI Collective, the world’s largest grassroots community of AI professionals. Mark founded the Atlanta chapter in July 2025 and has grown the members from 0-4,265 members and organized over 80 meetups and workshops since then.
If you work in marketing research, customer experience, or you lead a company trying to figure out how to use AI without losing your footing, Mark can help.
As always, food and drink, engaging conversation, and incredible company will all be provided!
Please be advised: Unfortunately, space is very limited at these community events and we can not always accept everyone we would like to. If you are not accepted to this event, please keep applying! We appreciate your application tremendously and we are looking forward to seeing you at a future event very soon!
The AI Collective is a global non-profit building the human layer for the AI era. We unite 200,000+ leaders, builders, and stakeholders across 100+ forums worldwide to democratize the frontier, build trust, and coordinate how society navigates the rapid acceleration of technological progress.
All attendees and organizers at events affiliated with The AI Collective agree to our privacy policy and are subject to our code of conduct.