Markets Are Repricing Insight — Gartner Is the Signal

For decades, influence in the advisory and analyst market was built on access to information and the ability to synthesize it for senior decision-makers. But as AI compresses the cost and speed of producing insight, markets are beginning to reassess which forms of intelligence still command real value. In this HSIQ Insight Labs exclusive, Richard Stein, CEO of HSiQ and Drew Seaman, managing director at Hunt Scanlon Ventures, examine what Gartner’s dramatic repricing reveals about the shifting economics of insight – and why judgment, timing, and consequence now matter more than frameworks alone.

For more than three decades, Gartner has served as a bellwether for the analyst and advisory industry. First becoming publicly traded in the mid-1980s, with its modern public listing dating to October 1993 after a brief period as a private company, Gartner helped define the role of the analyst firm as an intermediary between technical complexity and executive judgment. 

Over the past 12 months, that role has been sharply repriced. Gartner’s share price is down roughly 70% from its peak, falling from a 52-week high of approximately $584 in early 2025 to a recent trading range of $150 to $220. In roughly one year, tens of billions of dollars in market capitalization have been erased.

This is not a routine correction. It reflects a broad rerating of the traditional analyst model as investors reassess its durability amid slowing contract growth, softer guidance, and mounting structural pressure from AI-driven, self-service insight tools.

“The market is not reacting to execution issues so much as questioning whether intermediaries built primarily on the production and distribution of information still command leverage when information itself is no longer scarce,” says Richard Stein, CEO of HSiQ, the talent intelligence advisory unit of Hunt Scanlon.

The Signal Has Shifted

For decades, analyst firms derived power from synthesis. Research was expensive to generate, frameworks took time to build, and pattern recognition required scale and experience. Today, those mechanics have been radically commoditized. Executives can generate passable answers on demand. 

When insight can be produced instantly, its marginal value declines. The distinction that now matters is not between good and bad research, but between knowing and deciding.

“Insight has not lost value; generic insight detached from action has,” says Mr. Stein. “Markets are discounting firms whose output stops at awareness rather than accelerating alignment, conviction, and execution.”

“The real imperative today isn’t access to insight; it is knowing which signals actually matter before leadership decisions harden.”

“What’s being repriced isn’t intelligence, it’s abstraction,” said Drew Seaman, managing director at Hunt Scanlon Ventures. “Executives don’t fail because they lacked information. They fail because decisions were made too late, with the wrong people in the room, or without a clear understanding of leadership consequences.”

What remains scarce is contextualized judgment under real constraints, delivered at the moment decisions actually form, says Mr. Stein.

“It is access to people who have lived the tradeoffs under consideration – who can speak candidly about what failed, what broke, and which compromises proved survivable,” he notes. “These exchanges resist automation precisely because they depend on trust, timing, and reputation.”

Where Value Is Created

“The real imperative today isn’t access to insight; it is knowing which signals actually matter before leadership decisions harden,” adds Mr. Seaman. “In an environment where everyone can generate answers, advantage comes from identifying talent and leadership risk early enough to change outcomes. Once decisions are socialized, the value of intelligence collapses.”

“Talent intelligence only matters if it changes the decision someone makes.”

“Talent intelligence only matters if it changes the decision someone makes,” says Scott A. Scanlon, CEO of Hunt Scanlon and co-founder of HSiQ. “The goal isn’t better reports; it is fewer irreversible mistakes at moments where leadership decisions compound value or destroy it.”

“If traditional analyst firms monetized scarcity of information, HSiQ monetizes scarcity of consequence,” says Mr. Stein. “In that sense, the market is not rejecting analysts. It is rejecting models that confuse producing insight with shaping decisions.”

The next generation of influence will not be measured by who publishes the smartest framework. It will be measured by who is in the room when consensus forms – and whose judgment leaders are willing to borrow when the cost of being wrong is highest.