Guide

Synthetic users

Synthetic users are AI personas that act like people in your target group inside a simulation. They are fast and always available. They are also not people, and you need to keep that in mind before you listen to them.

What are synthetic users?

A language model is given a role: age, job, daily life, goals, worries. It then reads a website, a concept or an ad and answers from that role. You may also see the terms AI personas, simulated users or digital twins of an audience.

The model has no memories of its own. It assembles what such a person would probably say, based on text it has learned from. The result sounds convincing even when it is wrong.

What they are good for

• Looking early. Where might someone get stuck, before you pay for participants?
• Widening the view. How does a 71-year-old craftsman read a page written by a team in their thirties?
• Sharpening questions. What should you ask in the real interview?
• Comparing copy. Which wording raises questions?

Where they fall short

• No real behavior. An AI persona does not misclick out of tiredness and never spends real money.
• Too polite. Language models lean towards friendly, balanced answers.
• No surprises from life. What nobody wrote down, they do not know.
• No statistics. Percentages from a simulation are not market research.

The Nielsen Norman Group reaches the same conclusion in its assessment: synthetic users can support preparation but do not replace real research. Userbrain's experiment puts synthetic and real tests side by side and is worth reading.

How to use them well

1. Use them early, before you decide, not as proof afterwards.
2. Ask several different personas, not one.
3. Pay attention to reasons, not scores.
4. Check every important insight with real people.
5. Say openly that it is a simulation, also inside your team.

How Tyllara approaches this

Tyllara lets seven AI personas with everyday lives experience a website over months. Because they return or stay away, you get more than a first impression: you read what stuck and why someone stopped coming. A million simulated people add who finds the site at all through search, ads or word of mouth.

The language models run on PCM Vision's own computer, not at a third party AI service.

Everything is a simulation meant as a help, not a measurement and not a forecast. The app and the reports are in German for now; your browser can translate them.

Questions

Do synthetic users replace market research?

No. They help you ask better questions. Answers come from real people.

Are AI personas the same as classic personas?

Not quite. A classic persona is a research-based profile your team reads. An AI persona answers for itself, and it is only as good as its profile.