Kearney Taps Qloo's Cultural AI to Decode What Consumers Want

Qloo's proprietary cross-domain AI models uncover unexpected connections between EV buyers and off-road enthusiasts, giving automakers a new lens for product design, positioning and investment.

NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Qloo, the AI company powering cultural intelligence and taste-based inference, today highlighted new research conducted with global management consulting firm Kearney's Product Excellence and Renewal Lab (PERLab), demonstrating how artificial intelligence can reveal overlooked market opportunities by understanding the connections between consumer interests, lifestyles, and preferences.

The research, published by Kearney in its report Can rising fuel costs and a love for the outdoors open the market for off-road EVs?, combines Kearney's automotive and product strategy expertise with Qloo's proprietary Taste AI platform to examine an emerging question for automakers: could traditional off-road enthusiasts represent a significant opportunity for the next generation of electric vehicles?

The findings challenge conventional assumptions about who the next EV customer might be.

Using Qloo's cross-domain taste intelligence, researchers analyzed the cultural affinities associated with three distinct audiences: traditional off-road enthusiasts, mainstream electric vehicle buyers, and a Rivian-associated audience.

The analysis revealed that traditional off-road enthusiasts and mainstream EV buyers share substantially more cultural interests than conventional automotive segmentation might suggest.

Among the findings:

• Unexpected audience convergence: Off-road enthusiasts and mainstream EV buyers exhibited meaningful overlap across outdoor brands, entertainment, media, and lifestyle interests, challenging assumptions that these audiences occupy fundamentally different cultural worlds.
• An underserved market opportunity: The research identified potential white space for rugged, utility-focused electric vehicles in the 60,000 segment, where mainstream affordability and credible off-road capabilities have yet to converge at scale.
• Cultural signals beyond conventional demographics: Qloo's AI revealed relationships across brands, media, fashion, dining, retail, and travel that traditional vehicle ownership data or demographic analysis may overlook.
• Implications for product development: The findings suggest automakers can use cross-category consumer intelligence to inform product positioning, feature prioritization, and market-entry strategies earlier in the development process.

"Much of our work at Kearney PERLab centers on helping companies turn customer insight into better product decisions. Qloo gave us a different lens," said Alexander Bruns, Partner at Kearney. "At first, looking at interests in food, clothing, magazines, and music can feel off-topic. But those cultural signals revealed meaningful links between seemingly different audiences, including a finding we did not expect: mainstream EV buyers may have more in common with hardcore off-roaders than the industry assumes. That matters when deciding which features are essential, where differentiation is worth investing in, and where complexity can be reduced."

The study also found that the Rivian-associated audience exhibits a more design-oriented interpretation of outdoor adventure, while mainstream EV buyers share significant affinities with traditional off-road enthusiasts - suggesting room for differentiated products serving distinct consumer identities.

Understanding What Consumers Will Value Next

"Consumers don't live in industry silos, but most market research still puts them there," said Jay Alger, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Qloo. "What people love across the rest of their lives can tell you a tremendous amount about what they may value next. Our work with Kearney demonstrates how AI can uncover connections that aren't immediately obvious - whether you're designing the next generation of vehicles, entering a new market, or building more intelligent customer experiences. That's the power of understanding taste across domains."

Unlike traditional approaches that rely primarily on demographics, surveys, or historical purchasing behavior, Qloo models relationships among cultural entities and consumer preferences across categories.

Its privacy-first architecture enables organizations to explore affinities and make inferences without relying on personally identifiable information.

The approach provides a complementary intelligence layer for understanding consumers and evaluating new market opportunities.

A New Intelligence Layer for Product and Market Strategy

The Kearney research illustrates a broader application of Qloo's technology: using cross-domain AI inference to inform strategic decisions well beyond conventional personalization and recommendation systems.

By mapping relationships among culture, preference, and place, Qloo enables organizations to explore how interests in one domain may relate to opportunities in another.

These capabilities have applications across automotive, commerce, financial services, travel, hospitality, and the emerging generation of AI-powered agents - where understanding relevance and preference is increasingly important to making useful real-world decisions.

The research underscores how AI-powered cultural intelligence can complement traditional market research, helping businesses identify unexpected customer adjacencies, evaluate product concepts, and better understand what consumers value before making significant strategic investments.

The full Kearney research is available here:

Can rising fuel costs and a love for the outdoors open the market for off-road EVs?

The Q3 2026 study compared interest-defined audience cohorts, including a Rivian-affinity cohort rather than verified owners. Findings are directional and do not establish purchase intent or market size.

About Qloo

Qloo is the AI company building the intelligence layer connecting people, culture, and place. Founded in 2012, Qloo combines a proprietary cultural knowledge graph, large-scale taste signals, and machine learning models to understand and predict preferences across categories including entertainment, dining, travel, fashion, brands, and consumer products.

Through its API-first platform, Qloo powers personalization, discovery, audience intelligence, and AI grounding for organizations including American Express, Netflix, Match Group, Live Nation, and Michelin.

Qloo's privacy-first technology enables sophisticated inference without relying on personally identifiable information.

Learn more at www.qloo.com.

About Kearney

Kearney is a leading global management consulting firm. Its Product Excellence and Renewal Lab (PERLab) helps organizations improve product competitiveness through product strategy, design, engineering, and innovation.

Learn more at www.kearney.com.

[email protected]

SOURCE Qloo Inc.