Market research stagnant, time for a fundamental shift: Abhilash Madabhushi, Consuma AI

When Abhilash Madabhushi, Founder of Consuma AI, reflects on the origins of his entrepreneurial journey, it traces back to a pivotal moment during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a second-year college student, Madabhushi found himself with unexpected free time when campuses shut down. It was during this time that he became a core volunteer for COVID19India.org, a crucial crowdsourced project that tracked COVID-19 cases at granular district levels across India.

“It was purely a volunteer-driven effort. We didn’t make a penny,” Madabhushi recalls. “We won a few grants, and we passed them along to NGOs. For many months, I worked with people I didn’t even know by face.” The experience was transformative, planting the seeds for his future venture and igniting a deep interest in entrepreneurship.

As he experimented with launching startups, Madabhushi quickly encountered an entrenched problem: traditional market research was painfully slow and inefficient. “I would create surveys, send them to friends, and wait weeks to get a handful of responses,” he says. “Even then, I knew people weren’t taking it seriously.”

Diving deeper, he discovered that even large brands were relying on outdated survey methods, often gathering consumer feedback from a static panel of 100,000 people—an approach wildly inadequate for the pace at which consumer preferences now evolve. “In India, it's the same panel of a lakh people representing all different denominations. That's the whole market,” he remarks.

Madabhushi identified two seismic shifts transforming the consumer landscape. First, consumers were changing faster than ever before, fueled by the explosive consumption of content. “Today, someone looks at an Instagram ad and switches brand loyalty in minutes. Customer loyalty doesn't exist anymore,” he explains. Second, the competition itself had fundamentally changed, with direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands like Foxtale scaling to ₹100 crore in revenue in under two years, a feat that once took legacy brands like Lakmé decades to achieve.

“Earlier, distribution was a barrier to entry. Now, with platforms like Amazon and Alibaba, anyone can start a brand,” he says. “Legacy brands are facing threats not from small competitors, but from insurgents who can put them out of business.”

Against this backdrop, Consuma AI was born. Madabhushi, largely self-taught in AI, set out to build a platform that could provide real-time consumer intelligence by mining publicly available web data, including social media, blogs, videos, and news articles. “The answers to most questions brands have are already out there,” he asserts. “The challenge is finding the right data, adding the right context, and turning it into actionable intelligence.”

The platform’s promise is simple but revolutionary: delivering actionable market insights in just 30 minutes, compared to the traditional cycle of weeks or months.

While digitally native brands were quick to adopt Consuma AI’s tools—Foxtale was among the early adopters—Madabhushi has also seen legacy giants like Britannia embrace agile, real-time intelligence. He cites Britannia’s rapid response to the “Prashant/Croissant” meme trend as a masterclass in moment marketing. “They not only launched a media campaign but even changed their packaging and usernames,” he says. “That's what happens when a large brand has the right intelligence and the agility to act on it.”

Madabhushi argues that in today’s world, market research is not a luxury—it is operational intelligence, vital for survival. “You are like a government at war. Intelligence is what wins you the war, not just ground execution,” he says. “Without the right intelligence systems, brands are flying blind.”

The startup is now expanding beyond India, preparing for launches in markets like Dubai, with Madabhushi personally spending time to build relationships. Additionally, Consuma AI has partnered with Elevate Insights, led by Ruchira Jain, to combine AI-led insights with human expertise. “Some elements, like stakeholder management and navigating internal biases, still need a human touch,” he admits. “But the majority of the heavy lifting in research can and should be handled by AI.”

Looking ahead, Madabhushi envisions a future where brands will have an almost intuitive understanding of their consumers. “It might sound crazy now,” he says, “but soon brands will be able to predict your needs before you even articulate them.”

He believes the real treasure isn't raw data but the intelligence extracted from it. “Data is not gold. Intelligence is gold,” he states firmly. “Converting data into intelligence is not easy—but it’s what will separate the winners from the losers.”

As technology and consumer behavior evolve at a breakneck pace, Madabhushi’s vision for Consuma AI places it firmly at the intersection of innovation, agility, and intelligence—exactly where brands must be to thrive in a rapidly shifting marketplace.