Synthetic Data for Market Research: Is It Effective? (+ Other AI Use Cases)

Market researchers are under growing pressure to deliver insights faster with smaller budgets and tighter timelines. That’s why synthetic data (AI-generated data designed to replicate real human responses) has gotten so much buzz recently. If it reliably mimics real-world data, this could fundamentally reshape the research landscape.

In this article, we’ll break down:

• What is synthetic data for market research and is it effective?
• Ways AI is optimizing market research without sacrificing authenticity
• Key benefits of Pollfish, our market research survey platform

What Is Synthetic Data for Market Research & Is It Effective?

Synthetic data is created by machine learning and AI models in an attempt to replicate real human respondents. Rather than recruiting and surveying actual participants, researchers can use these AI-generated datasets to gain insights while avoiding the cost, time, and logistical challenges of traditional data collection.

Is it effective? While synthetic data offers obvious advantages, current research has not yet demonstrated that it can match the quality of data collected from real respondents in quality samples.

Main use case: For now, synthetic data is primarily considered a tool to test the validity of your surveys rather than generating actual insights. You can populate it with test data to ensure that branching logic and other survey design elements are working properly.

The bottom line: True market understanding still depends on genuine human input. We recommend maintaining focus on established, reliable approaches while monitoring developments in synthetic data for future consideration.

The Current Value of AI for Market Research

While current research has not proven synthetic data to be consistently reliable, AI has demonstrated significant value in other market research applications.

Our survey platform, Pollfish, already incorporates AI through two key features:

1. AI Survey Builder: Leverages AI to help you quickly build well-designed surveys by simply describing your research objectives. It also serves as an always-on helper for editing, translating, or making slight modifications to your project.
2. Conversational AI: Allows real-time, one-on-one conversations with respondents via an AI moderator, enabling you to gather rich, qualitative insights at scale.

We’ll explore both features in more detail below.

For additional information, see our article on the Best AI Survey Tools.

AI Survey Builder

Key Benefits of AI Survey Builder

• Provides a ready-made starting point with pre-written questions and survey structure, so you don’t have to start from scratch.

• Helps you come up with survey questions you may not have thought of on your own, so you don’t miss important insights.

• Acts as a smart editor when you need to make changes, translate, or add anything else to your survey.

How It Works

Using AI Survey Builder is extremely simple.

❇️ Step 1: Generate Your Survey with a Single Prompt

Simply enter your research objective and click “create” to instantly generate a complete, ready-to-launch survey.

As shown in the example above, you can phrase your objective as a question like “How can I compete better against major coffee shop chains?”

You can also include specific details in your prompt (e.g., target audience, key topics to explore, or particular metrics you want to measure) to create an even more tailored survey for your exact research needs.

❇️ Step 2: Customize Your Survey Through Conversational Chat

Once your survey has been created, you can customize it by conversing with the AI via natural language, just like you would with a human:

As you can see in the example above, you might ask for tweaks like:

• “Please remove question 10 and also change the response options in question 5 to be more narrowly defined purchase intent factors”

• “Please translate the survey into Spanish”

These are just a few examples — you can make virtually any adjustment you need through a seamless, conversational chat experience.

Apply Advanced Research Methodologies and Question Types (Optional)

Pollfish’s AI Survey Builder supports a variety of advanced research methodologies, including:

• Conjoint Analysis
• A/B Testing
• MaxDiff
• Van Westendorp Pricing Analysis

It also supports a wide range of survey question types, including:

• Single Selection
• Multiple Selection
• Numeric Open-ended
• Text Open-ended
• Rating
• Ranking
• Sliders

Apply Sophisticated Survey Logic (Optional)

You can also use our AI Survey Builder to apply skip logic effortlessly.

For example, you might ask the AI, “Can you set up skip logic so that if someone answers ‘Never’ to Q2 (‘Do you visit independent coffee shops?’), they automatically skip to Q5?”

Our AI will automatically build this logic into your survey, and it’s just as easy to create more complex conditional branching flows through simple conversation.

Conversational AI Feature

Key Benefits of Conversational AI

Pollfish’s Conversational AI feature offers the best of both qualitative and quantitative survey insights:

• Conversational AI is a survey question type that allows real-time, personalized conversations with respondents using AI, helping you capture deep, qualitative insights across large sample sizes.

• It encourages respondents to provide more thoughtful answers, and captures tone, emotion, and nuance that traditional survey questions might miss.

• Delivers interview-quality insights without the expense and logistics of scheduling, moderating, transcribing, and more.

• Automatically analyzes responses and generates actionable reports with key themes and insights.

How It Works

Conversational AI is best suited for questions where the “why” matters more than the “what”.

For example, you might ask: “Walk me through your routine when choosing where to get your morning coffee.”

Instead of getting a simple answer like “I go to the nearest café,” the AI could naturally follow up with questions like:

• “What makes you choose that café over others nearby?”
• “How do factors like price, convenience, or brand loyalty influence your choice?”
• “Can you tell me about the last time you switched coffee shops and why?”
• “How do promotions or loyalty programs affect where you go?”
• “What would make you try a completely new coffee shop instead of your usual one?”

You can learn more about Conversational AI in this article, and read our Conversational AI Help Guide for step-by-step instructions. Our support team is also available to help 24/7 via live chat or over the phone.

Customer Reviews Highlighting Pollfish’s AI Capabilities

Below are reviews from Trustpilot highlighting Pollfish’s AI capabilities. To explore our complete collection of customer reviews, click here.

“I’m loving Pollfish’s AI-generated questions — not only are they accurate and time saving, but it even came up with better survey queries than I could have thought of! With a quick poll of 250 respondents in just one working day, targeting my niche market was a breeze. The customer service team is super responsive too for those more complex enquiries about the tool and criteria. All in all this experience has been way easier (and cheaper) than any other ‘big players’ out there.”
– Read the full review here

“A great product with a robust interface that cleverly uses AI to enable the user to create the most efficient and effective survey based on their needs. I’ll be using this regularly moving forward when I need direct market feedback, and fast.”
– Read the full review here

“I rarely give 5 stars, but this one is well worth it. The interface is super easy whether you create it from scratch or use AI and the value is bar none. I had calls with other companies that wanted to charge me 1000’s and take days to complete. Instead, I signed up with Pollfish, created my survey in less than 30 minutes, and had all 100 respondents in a couple of hours. Saved me so much time and money. Worth every penny!”
– Read the full review here

“We had been looking for a pay-as-you-go insights platform and this one didn’t disappoint! Has a ton of capabilities and the AI suggestions are actually helpful.”
– Read the full review here

Other Key Benefits of Pollfish for Market Researchers

Beyond our AI capabilities, Pollfish delivers several other key advantages for effective market research:

• Advanced questionnaire design, audience targeting, and data analysis features, giving you the flexibility to build your survey to your exact specifications without compromise.

• High-quality audiences from Prodege with its rigorous data quality standards, ensuring you can make sound decisions based on your survey results.

• Transparent, pay-per-response pricing so you pay only for the responses you need (no long-term commitments), with no hidden charges or surprise fees.

• Fast turnaround time, with broad population results delivered in just a few hours, and more niche target groups usually fulfilled in as little as a few days.

• Complimentary 24/7 support from market research experts who provide strategic advice on survey design, optimal audience targeting, and data interpretation — not just basic platform navigation questions.

• An intuitive, easy-to-use platform making survey creation fast and accessible for anyone, regardless of their technical expertise.

To learn about the advantages of Pollfish in more depth, read our article on the best survey software for market research.

Interested in Trying Out Pollfish?

Pollfish’s AI Survey Builder and Conversational AI features help you create surveys faster and gather rich insights at scale. Our top priority is delivering reliable, high-quality data through first-party audiences and rigorous quality standards, ensuring you receive trustworthy responses from vetted respondents for confident decision-making.

If you’re interested in trying Pollfish, we invite you to:

• Create a free account — no credit card required.
• Inquire about our end-to-end market research services, where our team takes care of the entire research process for you, including survey programming, sample & fielding, data processing & analysis, reporting, and more.