Cascadeinsights

Cascade Insights® has conducted hundreds of studies and continues to research buyers, users, and decision-makers. Its work is informed by research into how organizations evaluate, adopt, resist, and scale new technologies.

Fluid Intelligence®

Fluid Intelligence® is Cascade Insights' human-centered approach to directing AI. It combines AI's speed and scalability with human critical thinking, nuance, context, and judgment. The approach emphasizes knowing what work to give AI, how much context it needs, when to challenge its output, when to intervene, and where human judgment should remain in control.

The Art of Asking

The Art of Asking is Cascade Insights' framework for directing AI. It helps people provide the context, constraints, examples, and judgment needed to produce useful work while making human oversight explicit. Topics include delegating to AI, managing AI-driven workflows and agents, and creating internal AI champions.

Leadership and teaching background

Co-founder and CEO Sean Campbell has taught at Purdue University, Willamette University's MBA program, and George Fox University's College of Business. He has authored technology books for Microsoft Press and Intel Press, delivered more than 150 conference sessions and workshops, and appeared on more than 100 podcasts.

Cascade Insights® works with B2B companies offering solutions in sectors including technology, financial services, marketing, life sciences, GreenTech, education, legal technology, government, manufacturing, and retail.

Research areas

• B2B brand and messaging: Research Activation®, B2B thought leadership, B2B brand research, and B2B message testing
• B2B buyer research: B2B customer satisfaction research, Jobs-To-Be-Done research, key buying criteria research, and buyer persona research
• B2B market and opportunities: B2B channel research, B2B win-loss research, competitive landscape analysis, and B2B go-to-market research

Research methodologies

Cascade Insights® lists the following methodologies:

• In-depth interviews, both in-person and online
• Focus groups
• Web surveys
• Online research communities
• Quantitative studies
• Social media and online community analysis
• Longitudinal research, including communities and diaries
• Secondary research

• Phone: 503.212.0687
• Email: [email protected]

The website also provides contact forms requesting information such as name, company, company email, and questions or comments. Cascade Insights® states that it will never share submitted information with third parties and refers visitors to its privacy policy.

The process begins by talking with people who do and lead the work, examining current AI use, identifying trapped gains, and determining which existing steps could change or become unnecessary. The resulting decisions may involve shifting employees toward direction, judgment, relationships, or decision-making, simplifying workflows, or stopping work that no longer needs to be done.

AI Strategy Sprint

The AI Strategy Sprint is a fixed-fee, few-week diagnostic and roadmap. It provides:

• A map of where AI can redesign work, ranked by payoff
• A sequence of what to change first, next, and later
• The skills and systems each change will require
• A basis for deciding whether to pursue deeper work
• Consideration of governance and risk management
• Guidance on identifying AI champions and pilot initiatives
• Guidance on selecting and working with AI vendors

The sprint is designed for B2B organizations with complex, cross-functional workflows. Its approach connects AI strategy with training, change management, Fractional AI Officer support, and ongoing market insight.

Work redesign engagements

• AI Work Redesign Sprint: Finds where AI is already creating value, helps decide what to scale, and leads to evolved work.
• AI Work Labs: Teams bring live work and develop stronger judgment while redesigning how that work gets done.
• Executive AI Cohort: Leaders stay close to important AI developments and decide what they mean for roles, workflows, priorities, and the work that should remain human.

Training outcomes

Teams can leave with:

• Real workflows they have practiced redesigning with AI
• Repeatable ways to delegate work to AI
• Clear rules for where human judgment remains essential
• Internal AI champions
• A practical path from individual experimentation to team-wide adoption

Functions supported

Training can be tailored for marketing, learning and development, sales, HR and people operations, product management, product marketing, market research, and operations. Examples include content creation, account research, course design, employee communications, competitive analysis, transcript coding, process documentation, reporting, and workflow analysis.

How training works

1. Understand the work: Learn how teams operate and where AI could create value.
2. Train in context: Use the organization's workflows rather than generic examples.
3. Apply in practice: Teams begin using AI with guidance.
4. Reinforce and refine: Mentoring and feedback strengthen adoption and improve outcomes.

Support can range from a single virtual session to an engagement lasting weeks or months. The approach includes hands-on workflow training, role-specific skill development, guided application, mentoring, and development of internal capability.