Market Research - Quantitative: Market Size & Forecast 2026

The global quantitative market research category sits at approximately USD 81.4 billion in 2025 (base year) on a 5.6% CAGR through 2032 in our base case, reaching roughly USD 119.0 billion. The headline number is right; the composition is wrong. The cost-of-doing-research curve that defined supplier economics for forty years is being re-rated by AI-led methodology: synthetic samples, LLM-augmented coding, agentic fieldwork, and digital-twin concept testing. The buyer-side question in 2026 is not whether to use these tools, but how to renegotiate legacy FTE-hour contracts before renewal. > **Analyst Take.** the central event of the next 24 months is not consolidation or regulation; it is the repricing of methodology. Anyone who has covered this category for five years has seen suppliers raise prices on the back of "complexity"; the next two years invert that pattern, with AI-native entran

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