Synthetic Personas in Market Research Technological Capability, Methodological Gaps, and Responsible Use
Abstract: Synthetic personas are emerging as a potentially valuable tool for market research, offering new ways to explore audience responses, test assumptions, refine research instruments, and support early-stage decision-making. However, the methodological standards needed to evaluate their credibility remain underdeveloped. This article reviews recent research on synthetic personas and examines the effects of persona conditioning, human grounding, demographic representation, validation methods, and population simulation. The evidence suggests that richer grounding can improve performance in some contexts, but greater persona detail does not consistently produce greater accuracy, and no universal validation threshold currently exists. The article proposes six areas for responsible practice: intended use, target population, data provenance and quality, persona construction, validation, and disclosure and human review. It concludes that synthetic personas are most defensible as bounded, transparent, and validated components of a broader research process rather than substitutes for human evidence.
Keywords: synthetic personas; market research; large language models; synthetic respondents; persona validation; human grounding; research methodology
How to Cite?: Rachel Cole, "Synthetic Personas in Market Research Technological Capability, Methodological Gaps, and Responsible Use", Volume 15 Issue 9, September 2026, International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), Pages: 1597-1603, https://www.ijsr.net/getabstract.php?paperid=SR26923193510, DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21275/SR26923193510