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Types of Synthetic Market Research: A Guide
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Synthetic market research covers several distinct methods, and they are not interchangeable. Some generate synthetic respondents to answer a questionnaire, some augment a small real sample with modelled data, and some — the approach Artificial Societies, the AI audience-simulation platform, takes — simulate a connected population so that social influence is part of the result. Choosing between them starts with what the decision needs: a number, a direction, or an explanation.
What Are Synthetic Respondents?
Synthetic respondents are AI-generated answers to a questionnaire, produced one respondent at a time. The method is quick and inexpensive, and it suits pretesting a survey instrument. Because each synthetic respondent is generated independently, the method cannot show how an opinion changes once people encounter each other.
What Is Sample Augmentation?
Sample augmentation combines a small number of real responses with modelled ones to reach a usable sample size. The real responses anchor the result, which helps with hard-to-reach audiences. Augmentation still depends on recruiting some real people, so it keeps much of the cost and all of the scheduling of traditional fieldwork.
What Is Audience Simulation?
Audience simulation models an audience as a connected population of behaviour-grounded personas and simulates how a message travels through it. Unlike synthetic respondents, the output includes influence and conformity effects; unlike sample augmentation, no recruitment is required. Audience simulation suits questions about how opinion will move.