RKI and presented new innovation research findings at the mesh conference in Calgary in April 2025. Photo by Paulina Ochoa for
The next competitive advantage won’t come from creating more content. It will come from understanding what others miss.
In a market flooded with AIgenerated noise and endless information, companies that invest in deeper, continuous insight are already pulling ahead. They are not succeeding by shouting louder. They are succeeding by knowing better.
At RKI, we work with organizations to uncover the insights that shape better decisions, stronger strategies, and develop more resilient growth. We are an insights and advisory firm that believes leadership starts with learning differently, by understanding markets, audiences, and internal dynamics in a way that drives action.
We cut our teeth in media, building our expertise inside a major media organization alongside journalists and editors. From the start, our research approach focused on finding insights that shape real stories (the kind that resonate internally with leadership teams and externally with customers and stakeholders). We don’t just gather data. We surface the signals that help organizations define who they are and where they are going.
That philosophy shaped the conversations between RKI and that led to this project. Together, a research firm and a media organization recognized the opportunity to approach the challenge differently, combining rigorous research design with a media company built to listen, analyze, and elevate new understanding.
This project grew out of ongoing conversations between and RKI about the need for deeper audience understanding, identifying gaps, and building a national perspective on innovation. A research firm and a media organization, aligned by a shared belief in the power of insight, saw an opportunity to approach the challenge differently. The partnership brought together complementary strengths, combining rigorous research design with a platform built to listen, analyze, and elevate new understanding.
This belief shaped our national innovation study with , which explored how Canadian organizations are building, or struggling to build, innovation maturity from within.
You can read the topline findings here.
What matters most, though, is not just the findings. It is what the process showed about why research itself is one of the most valuable assets a company can invest in.
Research reveals what surfacelevel analysis misses
Through this study, we learned things that would be invisible without the right approach.
While innovation is widely discussed as critical, it ranked sixth when leaders prioritized their biggest business challenges. Economic uncertainty, operational costs, and talent pressures came first.
Without asking deeper questions, it would be easy to miss why so many innovation initiatives lose momentum — not because they are poorly designed, but because they are not prioritized internally.
We also found that only 5% of companies identify as true “Game Changers.”
These organizations behave differently across every major dimension. They embed innovation into leadership practices, culture, and talent development. Their main challenge is not budget or resistance to change. It is finding and growing the right talent to sustain momentum.
This insight shifts the innovation conversation away from technology adoption or R&D budgets and toward the harder, structural work that separates organizations capable of leading from those that follow.
Another finding centered on the employee experience.
Among companies that rate as Game Changers, 68% of employees say they feel motivated and engaged at work. Among stagnant companies, the number drops to 23%. That difference is not a matter of perks or communication strategies. It is a reflection of whether employees believe they are part of something dynamic and forwardlooking, or something stuck.
Research helps organizations see these gaps clearly, and often before the symptoms show up in turnover rates or performance problems.
Similarly, the study showed that while 76% of companies report using AI in some form, the real performance gains are not evenly distributed. Game Changers report 2.5 times greater improvements in customer experience, operational efficiency, and decisionmaking speed compared to their peers.
Technology adoption alone does not create advantage. How companies organize, lead, and build their cultures around innovation determines whether technology delivers real value. Without original research connecting those dots, it would be easy to misread why some companies benefit and others fall behind.
In a world of noise, clarity is an advantage
As AI drives more content production and information volume grows, companies that understand their audiences, their industries, and themselves with greater clarity will be the ones that stand apart. Speed alone will not create differentiation. Scale alone will not guarantee trust. Insight will.
That is why the decision to invest in original research matters.
For , it wasn’t just about producing a study. It was about developing a data foundation and a deeper understanding of the dynamics shaping innovation readiness, leadership strength, and organizational resilience across Canada. These are insights that cannot be reverseengineered from thirdparty data or surface observation. They had to be earned.
Organizations that prioritize research will not just have better reports. They will make better decisions. They will be able to move with confidence while others wait for clarity that never arrives. They will recognize shifts in leadership behavior, cultural signals, and employee engagement patterns long before they show up in quarterly results.
Original research is not a marketing tool. It is a leadership tool.
In a business environment where algorithms and AI will level access to information, companies that own insight will lead the market, not chase it.We’re really excited to be working with , and our full research report, including sectorspecific and regional insights, will be released on May 21. Sign up here if you want to be notified when it’s released.
