Samarth I Synthetic research, a method that uses AI to simulate human respondents, is upending traditional market research norms. Instead of relying on paid participants and multi-week timelines, marketers can now access AI-powered panels trained on everything from analyst reports and government filings to Reddit debates delivering high-fidelity responses within hours.
The approach doesn’t just save time and money. It also offers an edge in precision. Synthetic respondents can emulate real-world decision-makers such as CIOs, CFOs, or small-business owners with diverse knowledge levels and behavioral nuance. And unlike traditional panels, these models don’t fatigue, don’t fake answers, and don’t delay.
While the technology has been quietly brewing for a few years, it’s now reaching operational maturity. Businesses are using it for everything from naming a product to running complex segmentation and category entry point analyses. Costs have dropped by up to 90%, and timelines have shrunk from months to days.
For B2B marketers in particular, who often struggle to access niche, high-salary respondents — the implications are seismic. Synthetic panels create access where none existed, opening up new possibilities for testing, iterating, and scaling campaigns. In some cases, companies have even deployed fully synthetic marketing pipelines, combining AI-led research, strategy, and creative.
Yet the rise of synthetic panels isn’t just about efficiency — it’s about influence. With AI capable of translating insights into financial projections, marketing teams are now using research not just to guide strategy but to secure internal buy-in from finance and executive teams.
As AI models grow more sophisticated, synthetic research is poised to become a core budget line — not a one-off experiment. Far from replacing the human touch, it may democratize strategic thinking across departments, turning market curiosity into an everyday habit rather than a luxury.
