GfK was founded as GfK-Nürnberg Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung e. V. in 1934 by university lecturers from Nuremberg, among them the future German Minister of Economic Affairs and Federal Chancellor Ludwig Erhard.

[9] In July 2023, NIQ (formerly a part of Nielsen Holdings), a U.S. market research and consumer intelligence company owned by Advent International, gained approval from the European Union to acquire GfK after an antitrust investigation that began in June 2023.

In May 2008, it acquired an equity stake in Deep-Packet Inspection company Qosmos in order to track and monitor Internet usage for marketing research.

[12] The management team consists of nine individuals (as of 22 February 2024):[2] GfK's core business is collecting and processing data on consumer behavior.

[2] Since 2020, GfK has offered its customers an AI-powered platform that uses relevant data to provide forecasts and produces recommendations to facilitate critical business decisions.