Presented by Radius Insights & Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business.
We just wrapped our annual Good Business Is Good Business Conference, featuring the 8th Annual American Innovation Index in partnership with Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business and the Responsible Business Center, and one thing was immediately clear.
This was not a conversation about innovation in theory. It was a conversation about what actually works in the real world.
Leigh Anne Statuto, Executive Director of the Responsible Business Center, opened the day by grounding the discussion in purpose and responsibility. From there, the conversation expanded quickly.
Tobias Puehse, SVP of Insights and Intelligence, Americas at Mastercard, challenged how organizations think about insights and decision-making in real time. Gina Woodall, Vice President at Radius, shared the latest findings from the American Innovation Index. Jay Shutter, Chief Technology Officer at Radius, explored how consumer perceptions of AI are evolving, and where trust is still lagging behind technology.
Across sessions moderated by Natasha Khan of The Wall Street Journal and Zoya Mirza of ESG Dive, with perspectives from Jeremy Neil of Toyota Motor North America, Chris Dethloff of the Consumer Technology Association, Kikke Reidel of MilkPEP, and Tina Tonielli of Good Company Partners, the conversation moved well beyond buzzwords. And the closing morning keynote with Craig Dubitsky, Co-founder of happy® Coffee, brought this to life in conversation with Rob Wengel, CEO of Radius. His perspective was refreshingly simple. Pay attention to people. Watch how they live. Look at the ordinary.
It became something more honest. More grounded. More human.
And it consistently came back to one idea. Innovation only matters if it matters to people.
Here is what stayed with us.
It All Comes Back to People
One of the most consistent undercurrents across the day was how often companies get this wrong.
They build from capability outward instead of from human need inward.
The American Innovation Index, presented by Gina Woodall, reinforced this clearly. Across thousands of consumers and hundreds of brands, innovation succeeds when it solves something real, not when it simply introduces something new.
Jay Shutter built on this in his discussion on AI. While the technology is advancing rapidly, consumer trust is not keeping pace. Nearly half of consumers still approach AI with hesitation, particularly when it feels unclear or forced.
Which makes the real starting point of innovation much simpler than most organizations want it to be.
Where is the friction?
What is the unmet need?
What would actually make this easier, better, or more meaningful?
That is the work.
And it is not just functional. It is emotional. The strongest ideas solve real problems while also making people feel understood, confident, or empowered.
This tension showed up repeatedly in discussions throughout the day. Innovation is not just about what works. It is about what resonates.
Innovation Does Not Start in Labs
It starts in everyday life.
Craig Dubitsky, Co-founder of happy® Coffee, brought this to life in conversation with Rob Wengel, CEO of Radius. His perspective was refreshingly simple. Pay attention to people. Watch how they live. Look at the ordinary.
That is where innovation lives.
He spoke about how many of his most successful ideas came from small observations others overlooked. And how even strong ideas can fail when something small and human is missed along the way.
It was a reminder that innovation is not always about breakthrough technology. It is about understanding people deeply and continuously across the entire journey, from early idea to in-market experience.
AI Is Changing the Speed, Not the Fundamentals
Tobias Puehse reframed how many in the room were thinking about AI.
The issue is not that companies lack insights. It is that insights often arrive too late, without context, or without clarity on what matters in the moment decisions are being made.
As markets move faster and decisions are shaped by both humans and algorithms, advantage is increasingly won in the moment of need.
He described how his team builds and continuously refines synthetic audiences using tens of thousands of consumer inputs. Not as a replacement for human understanding, but as a way to keep insights dynamic, responsive, and useful in real time.
The shift is clear.
From static reports to living intelligence.
From background information to decision inputs.
He also challenged a common framing of AI.
The more important question is not what AI will replace. It is what AI will enable that was not possible before.
That shift in thinking changes how innovation is approached entirely.
Innovation Is Behavioral, Not Just Technological
One of the more important insights from the American Innovation Index is that consumers are not a single “tech segment.”
Different groups adopt innovation at different speeds, for different reasons.
This was reinforced in the session moderated by Natasha Khan, featuring Jeremy Neil and Chris Dethloff, where the discussion centered on how customer expectations and behaviors are evolving across industries.
Adoption is not just about functionality.
It is about trust, context, relevance, and timing.
It is behavioral.
This idea also came through in the session “When Doing Good Drives Loyalty,” where Kikke Reidel and Tina Tonielli explored how purpose, transparency, and authenticity influence how consumers perceive brands and make decisions.
Even the most innovative idea will struggle if it does not align with how people actually think, feel, and behave.
Trust Is the Real Constant
If there was one theme running quietly underneath everything, it was trust.
As innovation becomes more complex, more data-driven, and more AI-enabled, the margin for confusion shrinks.
People want to understand what is happening.
They want to know why it works the way it does.
They want to feel like it is in their interest.
And if they do not, they disengage.
The takeaway from the day was not that brands need better messaging.
It is that they need clearer behavior.
Trust is built through consistency, transparency, and demonstrated value over time.
And it has to be earned before you need it.
What This Means
The biggest shift coming out of the conference is not about any single technology.
It is about timing.
The organizations that win are not just insight-rich. They are insight-ready.
They understand people before they build.
They identify opportunities before decisions are locked.
They move quickly, but with clarity.
They connect data, behavior, and context in real time.
That is the gap many companies are still trying to close.
And it is exactly where Radius plays.
Our role is not just to test ideas after they are developed. It is to help identify where the real opportunities are before decisions are made.
Where are the unmet needs? What tensions are emerging? What will people actually adopt? What will they trust?
Because the faster things move, the more important that grounding becomes.
Ready to Move from Ideas to Impact
If you are navigating how to innovate in a world that is moving faster than your processes were built for, we would love to help. Innovation research is one of our specialties.
You can learn about our innovation solutions here.
Through our partnership with ONE Strategy Studio, we can now identify innovation opportunities and strategic whitespace in days, not weeks, helping you solve your toughest challenges with speed and clarity. Learn more here.
Innovation is not getting easier.
But the companies that stay closest to people will always have the advantage.
