How AI Has Transformed My Story-Finding Method

Ray Poynter, 29 June 2025

After more than 40 years in the research and insights world, I thought I had fine-tuned my approach to finding the story in the data. Indeed, I have been teaching courses on story finding for over 20 years. However, the rise of Generative AI has caused me to redesign my methods and to adopt an AI-enhanced Socratic Method.

The Socratic method was written about by the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato, based on the teachings of Socrates. The Socratic Method is a form of argumentative dialogue and inquiry that centres on asking and answering a series of probing questions to stimulate critical thinking and illuminate underlying assumptions. The idea is to avoid simple answers and to properly reassess the information to potentially revise preconceptions.

My pre-AI method/ framework was:

1. Define the problem
2. Assess and prepare the data
3. Finding patterns
4. Assemble the story
5. Focus the story

And this has served me and my students well over the years.

But, with the aid of tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, my new framework is:

1. Define the problem
2. Assess and prepare the data
3. Apply a Socratic inquiry approach
4. Define the story

Why change?
AI has enabled me to work faster with larger sets of data, allowing me to focus more on the issues themselves and less on the data itself.

Socratic Inquiry Approach
By a ‘Socratic Inquiry Approach’ I mean:

1. Ask questions of the data in the context of research and business questions
2. Finding the big picture and then asking questions that explore the limitations of the big picture, for example, relevant exceptions
3. Exploring contradictions and anomalies by asking questions
4. Comparing my core data with other data (e.g. earlier data or third-party data)
5. Synthesising the findings into a coherent picture

Want to learn how to leverage AI to find the story?

I have two upcoming courses where I will demonstrate how to apply AI and this new framework to uncover the story in the data.

Each session is 90-minutes, in-person course delivered via Zoom. Attendees get a copy of the slides and access to the recording.

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