These 'Synthetic Humans' offer a bold new approach to user research

Fantasy’s Synthetic Humans won the experimental category of Fast Company’s 2024 World Changing Ideas Awards. They are trainable AI personas, built on Fantasy’s AI Cortex from more than 100 customizable traits, that give teams fast, early feedback for user research and ideation.

Fantasy CEO Firdosh Tangri says the product grew out of a pattern on client projects: when budgets tightened, user testing was the first thing cut.

• AI personas with a point of view. Each one has opinions, goals and memory of past conversations, and even secrets and long-term fears.
• A starting point for research. Teams test ideas on Synthetic Humans first, then take developed ideas to real focus groups.
• Measured results. Working with BP, in a collaboration documented by Harvard Business School, the tool cut research costs by 66% and saved more than 40 hours of human labor.
• Perspectives a team lacks. A persona can bring the view of a mother in Somalia to a U.S. team designing for the region, or of a suburban dad worried about his child’s internet use. Breaking out of a team’s own conventional wisdom, Fantasy CXO Peter Smart says, reveals room to innovate.