Why Hustle PH’s AI platform could be the future of consumer research

Hustle PH, also known as Agile Data Solutions Inc., is showing how artificial intelligence (AI) and technology can reshape market research, one of the less glamorous corners of the business world.

Jason Gaguan, CEO and co-founder, told the BusinessMirror in an interview that the key was that Hustle PH was able to build a technology platform that connects businesses with a massive network of Filipino consumers who collect and share data through the company’s app.

The company now has 1.6 million users, making it the country’s largest consumer research panel and data-collection operation.

Gaguan explained the model is straightforward but technologically intensive. A user, for example, such as a stay-at-home mother in Cebu, can use the Hustle PH app to photograph and inventory sari-sari stores in her community, complete the task in about 15 minutes and receive roughly P150 through GCash.

At scale, he said that the network becomes a valuable source of real-time information for companies seeking to understand consumers and retail markets.

Hustle PH provides services traditionally purchased by large multinational companies, including brand tracking, retail price compliance audits, distribution studies and consumer segmentation. The company’s proposition is to deliver these services faster, more cheaply and more accurately through technology and its extensive network of users.

Gaguan said the company’s customer-centric technology was developed largely by listening to customers first and building solutions around their requirements.

He recalled that in its early days, the company would meet prospective multinational clients, identify their needs, and then have its team build the technology to deliver the proposed solution.

Gaguan said that approach has transformed with the development of AI.

“So, after sales calls, we regroup and start building the tech fast,” Gaguan said, noting that AI and so-called “vibe coding” would make the process considerably easier today.

Rather than building technology first and then searching for customers, Gaguan said Hustle PH took the opposite route by identifying a business problem, developing a solution, and using technology to make the service faster and more efficient. The result is the Hustle PH technology suite, an end-to-end market research solution covering the full process from questionnaire development and data collection to the presentation of results.

For Hustle PH, Gaguan said AI is part of a broader technology strategy rather than simply a standalone product.

He said the company’s experience illustrates how AI can reduce the time and resources required to build software and develop new solutions, particularly for technology companies operating with limited capital.

He said the company’s experience illustrates how AI can reduce the time and resources required to build software and develop new solutions, particularly for technology companies operating with limited capital.

When Hustle PH started in 2021, its team had to rely on what Gaguan described as “hacking and piecing together solutions.” Today, AI-assisted development gives companies like Hustle PH a powerful tool for rapidly developing and testing technology—a speed that is particularly critical in market research, where companies compete on providing accurate information quickly.

Gaguan said Hustle PH’s focus has remained on three propositions: speed, accuracy and price.

Instead of spending heavily on advertising, the company has concentrated its resources on developing its technology and building partnerships.

The company’s technology connects two sides of the market: businesses that need consumer information and consumers who provide that information.

That creates what Gaguan describes as having “two customers”—a business model that makes the company more complicated but also differentiates it from a conventional market research operation.

Hustle PH says its objective from the beginning has been to create a platform where people can willingly share information about themselves and receive a share of the revenue generated from that data.

The company paid P27 million in rewards to its users this year, the highest amount since it started, according to Gaguan. He said the rewards may also contribute to the loyalty and continuing growth of the panel and the quality of the data collected.

This creates an unusual technology business model in which the people generating the data are also participants in the economic value created from it.

Interestingly, Gaguan stressed that Hustle PH’s technology-driven growth has also been achieved without the conventional startup playbook of repeatedly raising venture capital.

The company has never conducted a formal funding round and has instead financed its expansion primarily from its own revenues.

Gaguan said the bootstrapped approach has imposed discipline on spending while giving the company greater freedom in deciding its pace and direction of growth.

The strategy appears to have translated into strong financial performance. Since becoming profitable in 2023, the company’s revenue has doubled year-on-year, reaching P120 million in annual revenue in 2026, while cost of goods sold was maintained at 23 percent. The company reported net income of roughly 60 percent across three consecutive years of doubling.

Gaguan said revenue and profitability remain important measures because they force the company to develop products customers are willing to pay for while maintaining discipline and efficiency.

Scaling the technology

Hustle PH now plans to push its technology and business model further.

Gaguan said the company is targeting P600 million in revenue by 2027—roughly five times its 2026 level—while maintaining its cost structure. At the same time, the company plans to provide more earning opportunities to users of the Hustle PH app.

The growth strategy highlights a potentially important role for AI and technology in the Philippine economy: not simply replacing workers, but creating platforms that allow large numbers of people to participate in digital economic activity.

In Hustle PH’s case, technology turns thousands of small, distributed activities—from collecting retail information to creating content—into a single data operation that can serve large corporate customers.

The business therefore sits at the intersection of AI, market research, consumer data and the gig economy.

Its technology may be largely invisible to the consumers and companies that interact with it. But behind every retail photograph, questionnaire response, and data point is a platform designed to turn fragmented information into a commercially useful product.

For the 1.6 million Filipinos participating in the network, it also represents something more tangible: an opportunity to earn from small digital tasks using nothing more than a smartphone.

That combination of technology, data and distributed human participation could become one of Hustle PH’s most important competitive advantages as it seeks to scale from P120 million in revenue to its P600-million target.