Building synthetic users for advanced user research

What if you could interview your users anytime, before launching a feature, before building a prototype, even before talking to a single real customer? In this episode, veteran marketing researcher Mark (40+ years in decision-science) breaks down the real workflow behind synthetic personas and AI-powered digital twins - what they unlock, where they fail, and how to build them responsibly using citation-based data. We dive deep into: 1. The exact difference between a persona and a digital twin 2. Why most AI personas online are wrong (and how to fix them) 3. The tools that work (Perplexity, Notebook LM) 4.The step-by-step workflow for creating a synthetic user you can interview on demand 5. When to use synthetic insights — and when you MUST return to real humans A live demo: building a digital twin from a real digital footprint If you're a designer, researcher, PM, founder, or AI-curious creator, this episode shows how to turn AI into a serious research tool. ⭐ What You’ll Learn 1. How synthetic personas differ from digital twins 2. Why grounded, cited data is essential 3. How to gather and consolidate your source materials 4. How to build a synthetic profile using Notebook LM 5. How to run structured interviews with AI personas 6. When NOT to use synthetic users 7. How to evaluate skepticism and avoid common mistakes ⭐ Episode Chapters 00:00 — Intro 00:54 — Personas vs. Digital Twins 04:18 — Nuances of synthetic users 07:48 — Live demo: Creating a digital twin 21:27 — Jason Brett's Digital twin 33:06 — Skepticism on synthetic users ⭐ Brought to you by aiverse design — exploring the intersection of design + AI 🌐 Learn to design for AI — https://aiverse.design 🎥 Learn to augment with AI — YouTube: @aiverse.design Keywords synthetic personas, digital twin AI, AI user research, how to build synthetic personas, perplexity tutorial, notebook lm tutorial, ai research workflow, product design ai, user research ai, digital twin workflow, ai personas explained, synthetic users, ai for designers, ai for product managers, citation based ai research, digital footprint ai, design research using ai