Synthetic personas: The shortcut that leads exactly nowhere
Replacing qualitative human research with LLM-generated agents is just a high-speed way to confirm your own biases.
“A synthetic persona is a mirror wearing a costume.”
The Moment
Three vendors this month have pitched me the same thing: a suite of AI-simulated customers you can interview instead of the real ones. Cheaper. Faster. Always available.
What Everyone Saw
The pitch lands because it feels progressive. Research is slow. Recruitment is painful. Why not ask a model?
What Actually Happened
The model has read what you have read, watched what you have watched, and answers in the register you already prefer. It will never surprise you the way a real customer does in minute forty of an interview when she says the quiet part out loud. That surprise is the only reason to do research at all.
The Verdict
Noise. Use synthetic panels for scale-testing survey wording. Never for insight. The moment you replace human friction with model-shaped agreement, you have automated the removal of the one thing that could have made your work distinctive.
The Question
When was the last time customer research changed your mind about something you were already sure of?
Share