AI Can Scale Interviews, But Can It Replace Understanding?

Mick Jagger once said he’d “rather be dead than still singing Satisfaction at 45.”

He’s now in his eighties. Still singing it. And, if you haven’t seen the Stones perform, his energy is amazing. There’s a reason Adam Levine wrote “Moves like Jagger.”

When I co-founded Migliara-Kaplan Associates at 29, I had a similar view of my future,  At the time, I couldn’t imagine still moderating interviews, running ad boards, and living on airplanes decades later.

And yet—here I am.

Two research firms later, I’m still conducting in-depth interviews with physicians, patients, payers, and nurses. The only difference is I’ve traded the rollaboard for Zoom.

What’s changed isn’t the work. It’s how I do it.

I’m a better interviewer today than I was 20 or 30 years ago. Maybe it’s experience. Maybe it’s perspective. Or maybe it’s that people open up differently to someone who they perceive has walked “a mile in their shoes” and sense you truly understand their world.

I still get tremendous joy out of meeting and speaking with really smart people who are dedicated to their craft and are doing their best to either help their patients, balance costs and quality of care, or live a longer, better life.

The conversations are deeper now. More textured. More revealing. And that matters, because in our industry, insight isn’t just about what people say. It’s about what they mean, what they hesitate on, what they don’t quite articulate.

That’s hard to capture at scale.

Today, AI can generate more interviews, faster than ever. And I use it. Every day. I totally value it. It’s incredibly powerful.

But here’s the question:

In high-stakes situations, like a new product launch, is faster insight actually better insight?

Because more isn’t always better.

The best commercial decisions I see still come from moments, a single comment, a hesitation, a shift in tone, that experienced listeners know how to recognize and interpret.

Interestingly, many of the C-level executives I work with don’t remember the charts I may have presented. They remember something a KOL or physician said. Something a patient felt. A moment from a discussion that’s stuck with them and shaped their thinking years later.

I’ve always thought of that ability as the closest I’ll get to being an artist, taking hundreds of conversations and turning them into something vivid, memorable, and actionable. And doing that is my own version of singing Satisfaction.

AI will absolutely change how we generate insight. But it won’t replace the judgment that comes from years of listening.

And in the end: That judgment is still what drives the decisions that matter.