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Getting a quantitative fix on the size of your opportunities has always been hard, especially at the earlier stages of innovation or creative development. Time consuming and costly, it’s typically been reserved for the early stages of a project, to get the green light, or at the end to test and prove the outcome.
Its always been a necessary step, but rarely a creative one. Sizing lives in spreadsheets, not workshops. It’s often owned by finance, not innovation. And it arrives too late to truly shape outcomes, only judge them.
But hundreds of creative decisions happen in the space in-between... that space from initial project green light to final testable ideas. It’s where inspiration is explored, insights are crafted and ideas are born and developed.
But now that’s changing... Sizing can become a creative superpower.
AI automation has helped us transform opportunity sizing into something else entirely: a live, iterative, creative input. One that doesn’t just assess ideas but fuels them. One that doesn’t slow us down with validation but speeds us up with direction.
Because when you can size an opportunity in real time, you don't just know how big something could be... you start thinking bigger, sooner.
FROM PROJECT STAGE TO SUPERPOWER
Traditional processes treat sizing as a final checkpoint. A ‘go or no-go’ moment, once ideas are fully formed and emotional investment is already high. But that approach hardwires waste into the system. You’ve already sunk time, energy and stakeholder belief into something that may not be worth pursuing.
With AI-enabled sizing, that logic is reversed. Sizing becomes embedded throughout the journey... from early strategic framing to idea generation and refinement. It’s no longer a static milestone; it’s a dynamic decision-making tool.
Think of it as an “insight amplifier.” When used well, sizing doesn’t constrain creativity, it enhances it. It helps teams focus energy on the ideas that matter, dial up what’s resonating, and let go of things that aren’t. It turns abstract ideas into commercial narratives. And when used in real-time, it helps shape better choices at every point in the process.
FAST ENOUGH TO INSPIRE
The biggest barrier to integrated sizing has always been speed. Traditional market sizing takes time. Building analytic models, aligning stakeholders... it’s weeks or months before you get a number. That means it’s out of step with the pace of strategic thinking and creative development.
But AI automation has broken that bottleneck. Using econometric modelling, real-time search, segmentation overlays, and curated public and proprietary data, we can generate directional sizing estimates in minutes—not weeks. That means sizing can be done during a workshop, within a creative sprint, or between strategic iterations.
And that changes the game.
Imagine you’re exploring six different opportunity spaces. Instead of guessing which to prioritise, you run quick sizing estimates across them. Within an hour, you have a view on which territories have latent demand, which have search momentum, and which show distinctive segment appeal. That early visibility gives teams the confidence to pursue stretchier ideas... and to kill weaker ones before energy gets wasted.
SMALL DATA > BIG GUESSWORK
There’s a myth in the industry that good sizing needs “big data.” But often, what you really need is the right data, at the right moment, in the right context.
AI-enabled sizing doesn’t rely on huge survey samples or historical sales volumes alone. It pulls from a curated blend of publicly available datasets, commercial sources like Euromonitor, behavioural data like search volume, and client-supplied segmentations or sales figures when available. In other words, it blends hard numbers with market pulse.
That approach lets you construct agile models that are responsive, directional and crucially repeatable. You don’t just get one estimate. You get a framework you can tweak and rerun to explore different lenses: alternative target groups, changing category definitions, adjacent territories.
This turns sizing from a one-time stat into an evolving, learning system that matches how businesses really make decisions.
ITERATE, NOT EVALUATE
In traditional models, sizing is evaluative. It’s about judging an idea: is it big enough? Will it scale? Is it worth backing?
But in AI-enabled strategy workflows, sizing becomes iterative. It’s not a score—it’s a conversation. What happens if we reframe the audience? Focus on a different occasion? Shift the product format or usage context? Each of these can be tested quickly, with new sizing models generated instantly.
This unlocks a fundamentally different type of thinking. Instead of seeking ‘the answer’, teams can explore multiple pathways. They can model different versions of the same idea. They can stretch their thinking knowing there’s a feedback loop built in.
Crucially, this makes sizing a safe space,not a threat. In a world where creative or strategic boldness often gets filtered out by stage-gate logic, real-time sizing helps keep ambition alive by grounding it in evidence, not opinion.
CREATIVITY GETS COMMERCIAL
One of the biggest challenges in innovation and brand strategy is the tension between big ideas and business reality. Too often, we fall in love with creative platforms that don’t land commercially. Or we default to incremental ideas because they feel “safe” without truly knowing the upside.
Embedding real-time sizing into the process bridges that gap. When ideas are accompanied by dynamic sizing data... estimated market size, segment potential, behavioural demand signals... they become more persuasive. They move from being “interesting” to being “investable.”
This doesn’t mean ideas need to be giant to be good. In fact, it often reveals the overlooked value of niche opportunities. That’s especially useful for innovation portfolios where small but strategically aligned bets can deliver disproportionate brand or cultural value.
Real-time sizing gives creativity commercial credibility, without having to wait for the finance team.
THE HUMAN SHIFT: APPROVAL TO ALIGNMENT
Perhaps the most powerful impact of real-time sizing is cultural. It transforms how organisations talk about ideas.
In the old world, sizing was a pass/fail moment. It reinforced hierarchy. Finance or senior leadership “approved” or “rejected” based on a black-box number at the end.
But in this new model, sizing becomes a shared language early in the process. It helps align insight, marketing, commercial, and R&D teams around a common view of potential. It drives smarter discussions about risk, relevance and resource. And it does so without slowing the journey down.
That shift from post-rationalising to co-creating decisions changes the dynamic. It helps teams move faster together, with more confidence, less politics and a shared understanding of why ideas matter.
Sizing isn’t what it used to be. and that’s exactly the point.
The future of insight, strategy and innovation doesn’t lie in adding more steps to already bloated processes. It lies in rethinking the shape of those processes entirely.
When used well, real-time sizing breaks down the false wall between creative intuition and commercial logic. It lets us go fast without losing rigour. It turns static validations into dynamic provocations. And it gives teams the power to think boldly, then back it up... again and again.
It’s not just a tool. It’s a mindset shift.
A creative super power.
