MEET
Kristyn Corrigan
Principal
Education
B.S., Marketing and Sociology, Providence College
MBA, Marketing Analytics, Bentley University
Affiliations
Insights Association,
Member of the Product Development and Marketing Association (PDMA) Board of Directors
Introduction
Kristyn Corrigan is a principal at Applied Marketing Science (AMS) where she leads the Insights for Innovation Practice. In her over 20 years of consulting experience, she has helped dozens of companies use customer insights to create more successful products, services, and customer experiences.
Kristyn has extensive experience leading both domestic and international research engagements in business-to-business and consumer markets. She specializes in helping her clients to not only understand customer needs through in-depth interviewing and ethnographic observation, but also with how to measure their criticality to innovation.
In addition to consulting work, Kristyn trains and coaches companies to create and implement their own in-house insights and Voice of the Customer (VOC) programs. Kristyn’s published work has been featured in Fast Company and Marketing News. She is a contributing author of the 2023 textbook, The Product Development and Management Association Handbook of Innovation and New Product Development. She has guest lectured at several institutions, including the MIT Sloan School of Management. Kristyn currently serves on the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) Board of Directors.
Kristyn is a frequent presenter at leading industry conferences and podcasts, including the Front End of Innovation, PDMA Inspire Innovation, TMRE, Insights Association Corporate Researchers Conference, and Product Mastery Now. She has presented on a variety of product development topics, including Voice of the Customer, Generative AI for market research, pricing methodologies, and concept testing.
Kristyn holds an MBA in marketing analytics, with high distinction, from Bentley University. She graduated magna cum laude from Providence College with a B.S. in marketing and sociology.
Speaking Engagements
Webinar | Manufacturers Alliance Marketing Council
Turning Customer Feedback into Innovation with AI-Powered VOC
Today’s manufacturing R&D and innovation teams face growing pressure to uncover unmet customer needs faster, with greater accuracy, and at lower cost. But traditional Voice of the Customer (VOC) approaches can be time consuming, resource heavy, and vulnerable to human bias. What if purpose-built AI, guided by real VOC expertise, could help teams see more in their customer data, faster and with greater confidence?
Guest Lecture | MIT Sloan School of Management, 2025
What does it take to build products and experiences that truly resonate with customers, especially in a world where attention is scarce, data is abundant, and the pace of innovation has never been faster? Through case studies and discussion, students saw how AI-augmented VOC transforms how companies listen to and learn from customers. Tomorrow’s leaders will need to pair human judgment with powerful analytical tools, and Kristyn’s session highlighted exactly that opportunity and encouraged future innovators to “listen smarter” to build products that truly matter.
Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) Members Meeting 2025
Listen Smarter, Build Better. How AI-Powered VOC is Changing Innovation as We Know It
Her presentation “Listen Smarter, Build Better. How AI-Powered VOC is Changing Innovation as We Know It” explored the future of VOC research. Kristyn introduced AMS’s next-generation AI model, an LLM that is finetuned specifically for VOC research and optimized to extract rich, solution-agnostic customer needs from a myriad of sources.
Maryland Product Symposium 2024
Creating Customer Magic: How a VOC Mindset Fuels Insights for Innovation
Organizations are finding increased value in adopting a “VOC mindset” to fuel a continuous understanding of customer insights. They are also leveraging generative AI techniques to uncover customer needs in the increasing amount of readily available user-generated content. Kristyn explored how a VOC Mindset and advancements in Generative AI are propelling brands’ ability to innovate, retain, and delight customers.
University of Chicago Booth School of Business
AI Meets VOC: How LLMs are Revolutionizing Customer Feedback
Kristyn Corrigan spoke at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business on the evolution of Voice of the Customer (VOC) needs analysis and the use of GPT for VOC research. She also explored case studies and implications of LLMs on the future of insights.
Front End of Innovation (FEI) 2024
Creating Customer Magic: Harnessing Generative AI to Fuel Insights for Innovation
Kristyn's session explored how generative AI can unearth customer needs, even in complex, highly technical, or nuanced categories. She shared examples of how AI gathers comprehensive and detailed lists of customer needs, and discussed the future of Gen AI for VOC and what this could mean for the innovation community
TMRE @ Home 2024
Gen AI Unleashed: Revolutionizing Customer Insights for Unmatched Impact
In this session, Kristyn explored how generative AI is propelling brands’ ability to obtain robust, actionable insights. She discussed the benefits of needs-based innovation versus technology-led innovation, and how generative AI can unearth game-changing customer insights, even in complex, highly technical, or nuanced categories.
Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) Innovation in Focus Webinar Series 2024
Breaking Boundaries: Harnessing AI to Fuel Innovation
Kristyn discussed the research being conducted by AMS and Professor Artem Timoshenko from the Kellogg School of Management, and how Generative AI can unearth customer needs necessary for product development, even in complex, highly technical, or nuanced categories.
Insights Association Annual Conference 2024
Creating Customer Magic: Harnessing Generative AI for VOC Insights
Kristyn presented with Professor Artem Timoshenko from the Kellogg School of Management, exploring how custom Gen AI can accelerate and enhance VOC insights. The central question: Can Gen AI produce detailed and actionable customer needs – the beyond-the-obvious, qualitative insights necessary for product and customer experience innovation?
Front End of Innovation (FEI) 2023
Why Asking ‘How Much Would You Pay?’ Makes No Cents: Strategies for Innovation Pricing
Everyone has their price, and even the best innovations are useless if no one will buy them. Developing a pricing strategy that captures value but is acceptable to customers is tricky. In this session, Kristyn shared best practices for optimizing pricing and how to avoid common pitfalls.
PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference 2022
The Key to Successful VOC in Agile Teams
Kristyn Corrigan taught strategies for planning, interview question development, and backlog prioritization to help organizations who want to fit systematic VOC within iterative, fast-paced processes.
Product Mastery Now Podcast
413: The Key to Successful VOC in Agile Teams – with Kristyn Corrigan
Kristyn Corrigan was recently featured on the Product Mastery Now podcast hosted by Chad McAllister, Ph.D. Recorded at the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference, Kristyn explains the three pillars of conducting effective Voice of the Customer (VOC) research within agile frameworks and provides valuable advice for product managers looking to implement VOC.
Front End of Innovation 2022
Holy Cow! New England Dairy’s 4 Pillars of Customer Centric Innovation
In our rapidly changing environment, understanding the evolving needs of customers has never been more important. It has also never been more challenging. In their session, Kristyn Corrigan and Michael DeAngelis (New England Dairy) discussed the four critical success factors of customer-centric innovation, from which attendees gleaned actionable steps to overcome hurdles in uncovering their customers’ needs.
Front End of Innovation 2021
Machine Learning: Leading the Voice of the Customer Insights Revolution
Kristyn Corrigan presented with Yogesh Chavda, Head of Insights at WS Audiology. They discussed how the machine learning method uncovers nuanced insights that even traditional research may overlook. Attendees learned first-hand how WS Audiology partnered with AMS and utilized machine learning to answer their most pressing brand and product strategy questions.
PDMA Virtual Mini Conference 2020
Innovating in a Virtual Universe
Kristyn Corrigan was joined by a panel of experts to discuss tools, methods, and other key tips for navigating innovation in a virtual universe. Kristyn also discussed potential innovation pitfalls to avoid.
TMRE Virtual Digital Summit
Machine Learning: Unmasking Insights in the Masked Era
Kristyn Corrigan and Carmel Dibner discussed how researchers can utilize machine learning to gather deep, transformative insights, even without being face-to-face with customers.
FEI Presents: Leading Innovation in a Digital World
Machine Learning: Finding Sticky Innovations in the Age of Stuck at Home
Kristyn Corrigan and Carmel Dibner discussed how machine learning can be leveraged to gather unique and actionable customer insights during this transformative time.
PDMA Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM) Virtual Research Forum 2020
Future of Design, Development, and Innovation (DDI) During Turbulent Times
Kristyn Corrigan joined a panel of experts addressing how DDI may be impacted by the global pandemic and the climate of racial and civil unrest. In addition, they discussed how technology plays a critical role in addressing some of these problems, but could exacerbate them if used inappropriately.
Insights Association Corporate Researchers Conference 2019
The Future of Innovation: Faster, Better Insights with AI
Kristyn Corrigan presented on ACE™ (Automated Content Evaluator) a machine learning algorithm developed in collaboration with researchers at MIT. Attendees learned how machine learning can help uncover customer insights faster and cheaper, from existing user-generated content like online reviews, discussion boards, user forums, and customer verbatims.
PDMA Annual Conference 2019
Kristyn Corrigan and Gerry Katz, AMS Chairman Emeritus, presented alongside Douglas Clark of Douglas Dynamics on how new advances in machine learning can drastically improve current research practices and uncover new hidden insights. The presentation included an illustrative case example from Douglas Dynamics.
Insights Association Spring Conference 2019
Front End of Innovation 2019
The Future of Innovation: Faster, Better Insights with AI
Kristyn Corrigan presented on ACE™ (Automated Content Evaluator) a machine learning algorithm developed in collaboration with researchers at MIT. Attendees learned how machine learning can help uncover customer insights faster and cheaper, from existing user-generated content like online reviews, discussion boards, user forums, and customer verbatims.
Insights Association NEXT Conference 2019
Kristyn Corrigan demonstrated the many benefits of machine learning for market research and walked through an illustrative case example to bring the method to life.
Areas of interest
Industries
Industrial Components
Heavy and Compact Equipment
Building Materials and Durables
Chemicals, Coatings, and Additives
Consumer Durables
Kristyn's Thought Leadership
Get to know Kristyn - she recently featured on the Product Mastery Now podcast.
