WTF Are Synthetic Audiences?
And why brands need to stop treating them like real people.
There’s a new term quietly slipping into marketing meetings, pitch decks, and AI platforms: synthetic audiences. If you haven’t heard it yet, you will. If you’ve heard it but ignored it, you won’t be able to for long. And if you’re wondering whether we’re going too far...well, we might be. But that’s exactly why it’s worth talking about.
So, what actually is a synthetic audience?
In simple terms:
A synthetic audience is a computer-generated group of “people” created by AI to simulate how real humans might think, behave, buy, scroll, react, or choose.
They’re essentially imaginary focus groups with extremely convincing data.
Instead of running research with 200 real participants, platforms can now generate 20,000 “virtual humans” built from millions of data points, predicting what they would do. Not real people. But extremely realistic patterns.
Why marketers are obsessed
Synthetic audiences promise speed, clarity, and scale:
Instant feedback loops
Hypothetical behaviours mapped out in minutes
Persona testing without the cost
Simulated launch responses
Predictive A/B tests through “virtual human surrogates”
It’s research without the humans — and that’s exactly its power and its problem.
The danger no one wants to say out loud
“When you design for synthetic audiences, rather than for real ones, you start to drift into a strange space”
When you design for synthetic audiences, rather than for real ones, you start to drift into a strange space: You optimise for perfectly predictable behaviour, not human behaviour. You create for patterns, not people. You standardise instead of surprise. And this is how brands lose their edge...by trying to please an audience that doesn’t actually exist.
So… is this going too far? Not if we treat synthetic audiences as tools, not targets. The risk isn’t the technology, the risk is forgetting that the technology is simulating people, not replacing them.
Where brands should stand
In a world of synthetic audiences, the brands that win will be the ones who double down on real human understanding:
Real conversations.
Real customers.
Real feedback loops.
Real emotions.
Real stories.
Data can guide.
Patterns can inform.
But only humans create the meaning that makes a brand matter.
People don’t attach to “brands.” They attach to behaviour, tone, attitude, intent. Personality is the emotional anchor that keeps a business recognisable even as it evolves.
But here’s the quiet truth:
Most brands drift.
Not because people aren’t trying, but because operations grow, teams shift, new offers are added, and the original spark becomes diluted, stretched, or replaced by default decisions.
Reuniting a brand with its personality is not about inventing something new...it’s about rediscovering what’s true, relevant, and resonant right now.
