In an age of rapid AI advancement, social listening offers unprecedented access to real-time data — but are we losing the human touch? This session explores how to balance cutting-edge analytics with human interpretation to uncover insights that are not just fast, but meaningful.

Purpose

This paper connects to the wider discussion on how the industry is changing, and how insights professionals must develop over the next 5 years. In the past year alone, the capabilities of digital research tools, particularly in social listening, have leapt forward.

Analyses that once took weeks can now be executed in days or even hours, enriched with emotional analysis, patient journey mapping, and more. Yet with this acceleration comes a risk: faster access to more data can tempt us to value speed over substance.

This session makes the case for applying an anthropologist’s lens to social listening, ensuring that advanced tools serve a deeper human understanding rather than replace it. We will explore how to go beyond simply monitoring online conversations, instead using these capabilities to craft empathetic, context-rich insights that do justice to the communities and patients we study.

What can you expect?

Through examples from healthcare and beyond, we’ll explore how combining cutting-edge analytics with human interpretation can transform social listening into a strategic driver — guiding communications, informing policy, and shaping patient engagement. The result is insight that’s not just fast, but meaningful, actionable, and enduring. 

We’ll discuss how to ensure human intelligence and interpretation remain central in this AI-driven era — helping us keep our good judgment and sense-making skills. You’ll learn how AI can actually enable us to be more human in how we investigate and understand data, moving beyond the superficial. We’ll also look at why tools alone are never enough without human direction, how to strike the right balance, and how going beyond standard sentiment analysis can unlock deeper, more impactful insights from social listening.

Agenda

• Setting the Scene: The State of Social Listening in 2026. A journey through a data scientist’s eyes
• The anthropological lens and the shifting tides of digital culture
• Panel Discussion

Who should attend?

This webinar is designed for pharma and healthcare teams already using — or investing in — social listening platforms, but who feel they may not be getting the full value or meaning from their data.

If social listening in your organization has become more about monitoring keywords and conversations than uncovering genuine understanding, this session will help you see what’s possible when expert human insight is brought into the process. We’ll contrast what can be found through automated tools alone with what becomes visible when ethnographic and interpretive approaches are applied.

Attendees will also gain an understanding of the types of analysis and modeling that can be applied to large-scale datasets — turning standard exports into deeper insight by identifying meaningful trends, links, and relationships that drive smarter decisions.

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Speakers

This webinar will be run by Jarlath Mulhern and Max Taylor McEwan from Madano. To find out more about their experience in this area read their full profiles in the BHBIA Speaker link on the right.

Speakers supporting BHBIA Professional Development do so in order to promote Thought Leadership, discussion and innovation for the benefit of the membership. They also do this on a voluntary basis for which the BHBIA is grateful. Don't forget to provide your feedback scores for the event as these will enter the event and speakers into our annual BHBIA Professional Development Awards - recognising excellence in Thought Leadership.

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Fees and booking

Webinars are a free benefit to all BHBIA Members. Please note you must be 
logged in if you are a member or join as a registered user to book online.