Article

Research report: The state of synthetic research in 2025

Christopher Silvestri (Conversion Alchemy) · christophersilvestri.com

A field survey of who is actually using synthetic research and for what.

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The question it answers

  1. Can synthetic users and AI personas replace talking to real customers?

Read with it

  1. The most rigorous practitioner treatment of when synthetic users help and when they mislead. nngroup.com Article Synthetic Users: If, When, and How to Use AI-Generated "Research" Nielsen Norman Group
  2. Video Synthetic Users: AI "Participants" (video) Nielsen Norman Group
  3. Actual empirical studies measuring how far AI-simulated behaviour diverges from real users. nngroup.com Article Evaluating AI-Simulated Behavior: Insights from Three Studies on Digital Twins and Synthetic Users Nielsen Norman Group
  4. Video Accelerating Research with Synthetic Users Conference talk (YouTube)
  5. Video Synthetic User Research Explained | How AI Is Changing UX YouTube creator (UX research)
  6. The sharpest critique: synthetic research borrows the authority of science without its standards. interactions.acm.org Article The Synthetic Persona Fallacy: How AI-Generated Research Undermines UX Research ACM Interactions
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