# Adtech veteran Todd Parsons takes Prodege CEO role

> The Blackstone-backed consumer insights firm taps an AI expert to modernize market research.
- Title: Adtech veteran Todd Parsons takes Prodege CEO role · Adweek
- Summary: The Blackstone-backed consumer insights firm taps an AI expert to modernize market research. Prodege is betting that AI can speed up consumer research by…
- Keywords: todd parsons, prodege, blackstone, market research, consumer insights, ai integration, loyalty programs, swagbucks, criteo, adtech, ceo appointment, veteran
- Source: Adweek — https://adweek.com/media/adtech-vet-todd-parsons-named-ceo-of-blackstone-owned-insights-firm
- Author: Lauren Johnson
- Published: 2026-09-17T10:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: todd parsons, prodege, blackstone, market research, consumer insights, ai integration, loyalty programs, swagbucks, criteo, adtech, ceo appointment
## Adtech veteran joins Prodege as CEO
Todd Parsons starts October 1st as CEO of Prodege, a Blackstone-backed consumer insights firm with a panel of 125 million people powering loyalty programs like Swagbucks and MyPoints.
## How Prodege's panel works
Members of Prodege's loyalty programs complete tasks and surveys to earn incentives while providing feedback to consumer brands, retailers, and game developers.
## Parsons brings AI expertise from Criteo
At Criteo, Parsons was chief product officer overseeing development of retail media and AI tools, including a Model Context Protocol for performance marketing.
## AI will speed up market research
Parsons plans to use AI to make Prodege's research products faster and easier, embedding consumer feedback directly into the workflows that train AI models.

> The idea that a consumer study takes time to segment, conduct, and then build that feedback into the brand manager has to change pretty quickly.
## Real people data beats synthetic models
Parsons argues that AI agents should analyze real consumer feedback from Prodege's panel rather than relying solely on synthetic data, with humans verifying the AI's conclusions.

> The asset is the people, the deep information about users, the way that it is being applied today is something that can be unlocked in an extraordinary way in the AI world.
## Prodege faces stiff competition
The firm competes with Pinecone Research and NielsenIQ, but Parsons believes Prodege can differentiate through the scale of its 125 million consumer panel.
## Key takeaway

Prodege is betting that AI can speed up consumer research by embedding real-time feedback into brand decision-making, replacing slow static surveys.