Synthetic Users: Not a Replacement, an Amplifier

Synthetic users offer an unprecedented opportunity to scale product insights — if you know how to use them correctly. Rather than replacing real human research, these AI-driven simulations serve as a powerful analytical layer to help teams explore more perspectives, test scenarios and inform product decisions faster. This session cuts through the hype to clarify what synthetic users are, how they are built from real data and how to deploy them responsibly across the product lifecycle.

As organizations look for faster ways to explore user needs, test assumptions, and inform product decisions, synthetic users are emerging as a powerful and sometimes misunderstood tool.

This session will clarify what synthetic users are, how they can be designed from real data, research findings, behavioural patterns and AI-driven simulations, and what their limits are.

Through real case studies, we will show how synthetic users can support research teams across different phases of the product lifecycle: from early discovery and hypothesis generation to scenario testing, concept evaluation and stakeholder alignment. Rather than replacing researchers or real participants, synthetic users can act as an additional research layer, helping teams ask better questions, explore more perspectives and make existing insights more accessible.