Last week IRI, a global market research firm based in Chicago, held its annual “Growth Summit,” a three-day conference designed to help CPG manufacturers, retailers and media industry executives understand the opportunities and challenges presented by big data. The event, held in Nashville’s Opryland district, included a range of educational and strategy-oriented sessions on cross-category dynamics, fragmented media, consumer personalization, digital marketing and e-commerce.

Amid the sprawling conference, which was attended by executives from across the CPG spectrum, BevNET sat down with IRI CEO and president Andrew Appel and recorded an interview for this edition of the podcast. Appel discussed IRI’s efforts to detangle and optimize an ever-evolving and complex web of sales and consumer data, noting there will be a “43X increase in annual data by 2020.” He also explained why he believes that “voice is the next platform” for data collection, and shared his thoughts on nascent efforts to personalize food around individual DNA and why IRI is to expanding its use of artificial intelligence to “automate away the simple.”

Also included in this edition of the podcast: a “What are you drinking?” segment with BevNET’s two “Young Turk” reporters, Marty Caballero and Brad Avery, and a chat with Glenfiddich brand ambassador Allan Roth, who spoke about the single-malt scotch brand’s innovation pipeline.