Welcome to the State of Social Intelligence 2026 report
The most comprehensive report of the state of the social intelligence industry is now available.
This year we surveyed 330 professionals from around the globe to explore industry trends in social intelligence. We wanted to learn how their work has evolved over the last 12 months, what challenges they face and the opportunities they’re excited about. And, once again, we’ve delved into how genAI is shaping the industry, while also sharing our perspective on what needs to change.
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Key take aways from the State of Social Intelligence 2026
This year’s report has revealed that social intelligence and social data analytics are changing in surprising ways and at unprecedented speed.
You will have noticed the name change: no longer social listening but social intelligence. This reflects the role of the industry today. We no longer merely observe and record online conversations but are taking root in online communities, widening and deepening our remit, and extracting more meaning and actionable insight from the data.
We dug deep into the sector with this survey, questioning 330 SI professionals, more than ever before. All the evidence suggests positive growth and increased maturity as the industry evolves. This report takes you through the results and shares the insights we’ve discovered.
These include...
• 87% of practitioners expect social intelligence to expand or deepen over the next two years, while only 7% believe the role will remain unchanged. This signals strong confidence that social intelligence is becoming more strategically important within organisations.
• 80% of respondents say they are involved in interpreting patterns, narratives or meaning from social and internet data often or all the time, highlighting the industry's shift from simple monitoring toward deeper insight generation and strategic interpretation.
• 94% feel confident defending their analysis to senior stakeholders, and more than half report being very confident in analysing cultural or behavioural meaning from online conversations. This suggests growing maturity and credibility for social intelligence functions.
• There is a gap between perceived value and actual use of social intelligence. Only 12% say social intelligence is most frequently used for strategic planning, even though respondents consistently rate this as one of the areas where social intelligence creates the greatest value. Most activity remains focused on ongoing monitoring and reporting.
• Technology remains the biggest operational constraint. 64% of respondents identified tool limitations or integration issues as the factor most limiting the impact of social intelligence, despite more than half saying technology significantly expands their analytical capability.
An industry becoming more confident
The State of Social Intelligence 2026 reveals a maturing industry, both in the people who work within it and the way social intelligence is applied.
Respondents were notably senior, with 66% holding manager-level positions or above and 68% having more than seven years of experience. Almost 40% worked within in-house brand teams, while others were spread across agencies, consultancies, research functions and independent roles.
Tools and data sources of choice
Most organisations now operate with a relatively focused technology stack, with almost one-third using a single dedicated SI platform. The most widely used tools are Talkwalker, Brandwatch, Sprinklr, YouScan, Audiense and Tubular Labs. Increasingly, practitioners are supplementing these platforms with generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini to analyse and interpret data.
When it comes to data sources, Instagram, Twitter/X, Reddit and TikTok remain the dominant channels for analysis, while YouTube has entered the top tier of platforms being monitored. Beyond social networks, practitioners are increasingly analysing online news, forums, search data, review platforms, podcasts and AI-generated answers from large language models. The growing inclusion of AI-generated content reflects the industry's shift from simply monitoring online conversations to understanding how information is being created, surfaced and consumed across a broader digital ecosystem.
The confidence–interpretation gap
In terms of usage, social intelligence is still primarily employed for ongoing monitoring, reporting and project-based support, with 37% of respondents saying its role varies significantly by project and 31% saying it is used on an ongoing basis.
However, respondents consistently believe social intelligence adds most value when informing strategic planning, even though it’s less frequently used in this capacity. This suggests a gap between how organisations currently deploy SI and where practitioners believe it can deliver the most impact.
And, while analytical capabilities have advanced in line with SITech toolkits, our ability to interpret data hasn’t kept pace in every context. We explore the main reasons this gap between confidence and interpretation may have appeared.
SI is at a crossroads
The industry is clearly maturing and evolving, but SI professionals need to collectively work together to move from a supporting role to a strategic decision driver. We have access to richer data, but that doesn’t automatically mean richer interpretation. We need to develop shared understandings of what interpretation means in the different contexts of our work and build the skills needed to keep pace with stakeholders’ growing expectations of our work.
AI moves centre-stage
For the first time, we asked SI professionals whether analysis of AI-generated answers was part of their remit. The survey identifies the growing importance of genAI tools being used fully but also shows professionals reasoning where its limits lie.
Although respondents expected AI-generated analysis to grow most over the next three years, human cultural and societal analysis will still play a central role. On this point, Leo Lytvynenko of YouScan, sponsor of the report, referenced AI pioneer Andrej Karpathy: ‘You can outsource your thinking, but you cannot outsource your understanding – and I think that’s what we’re seeing in this year’s report.’