In March 2026, Empathy Lab hosted a live webinar on Synthetic Audiences, one of our Growth Applications. It featured live demos and practical views from two experts in the field. Dr Paul McCormick, Head of Consulting DEP EMEA, walked through the standalone research accelerator. Rob Ahnemann, Sitecore Practice Lead and Managing Principal of Technology Consulting, showed what happens when the same capability sits inside a DXP and helps an author in real time. If you couldn't make it, here are all the highlights from the session so you can get up to speed in five minutes. And if it sparks questions, the full recording is waiting for you at the end.
The role of Synthetic Audiences
Traditional research gives you certainty, but it’s costly to use for every decision. Synthetic Audiences use large language models (LLMs) to create personas that mirror the segments you care about. You can ask them structured questions, get scores and see the reasoning behind each response. Add first-party data and those personas behave with even more nuance. With this early feedback, teams can keep human testing for the moments that matter most and scale exploration across everything else.
“Treat Synthetic Audiences as a research accelerator. You get useful answers in minutes, then take the best ideas into human testing.”
Paul McCormick, Head of Digital Business at Empathy Lab
Demo one: research in minutes, not months
Paul’s walkthrough made the mechanics simple. Define two personas. Present three product concepts. Ask a range of consistent questions. Within minutes, you see comparative scores and explanations that read just like the notes from human interviews. Here’s what stood out:
Consistency. Just like human audiences, retesting a synthetic persona with the same questions yields similar results.
Mixed methods at speed. You get both quantitative scores and a qualitative rationale, which fast-tracks decisions.
Follow-ups on tap. If you wish you had asked one more question, you can ask it right away and keep going.
Cost control. You can test dozens of ideas for a 100th of the price of testing a single product with a human focus group.
The bottom line: Synthetic Audiences don't replace qualitative researchers. But they do help to widen the test field and improve the quality of results that filter back to researchers.
Demo two: research inside the DXP
Rob’s demo showed how Synthetic Audiences work inside SitecoreAI. An author loads a live page for an urban healthcare clinic. The on-page language reads like private concierge healthcare. A synthetic persona called Alex reviews the content, explains the disconnect, and proposes a headline, body copy and call-to-action that convey affordability, transparency and respect. The author applies the change right away: no copy and pasting, no tool switching. And if you operate across multiple markets? Content in another language can be prompted within this context as well…
“Add evaluation where authors write. Not only will you publish quickly, but also correctly.”
Rob Ahnemann, Managing Principal, Technology Consulting at Empathy Lab
When you integrate Synthetic Audience into your DXP, you don’t just speed up the process. Orchestration becomes real when research happens where the work happens. This way, testing changes from being a separate task to becoming an embedded step. You replace long waits with minutes, and you replace guesswork with fast, directional evidence your team can act on.
Good to know: the integration of Synthetic Audiences is platform agnostic. SitecoreAI was the demo, but adapters exist for other enterprise DXPs.
The bottom line: Synthetic Audiences don't replace qualitative researchers. But they do help to widen the test field and improve the quality of results that filter back to researchers.
How Synthetic Audiences can benefit your business
Leaders can expect near term gains in three places:
1. Content and campaign fit
Test your message, tone and offer against the segments that matter – before you spend on media. Authors can see why the change improves resonance, so quality rises across the team.
2. Product and UX iteration
With concept testing, you keep sprints moving. Designers and PMs get quick reads that inform what to take into moderated studies.
3. Internal and partner communications
Leadership updates, enablement decks, intranet content and recruitment pages benefit from the same validation. Treat employees and partners as real audiences with specific needs..
The impact of Synthetic Audiences on your teams
When research becomes an everyday habit inside the tools your teams already use, you get a culture that tests more and wastes less. You also get conversations that move from opinion to evidence without slowing down. CMOs and product leaders will see the benefit in shorter cycles, tighter creative, and fewer expensive U-turns.
Synthetic Audiences help your team move faster, but the final call still belongs to humans. People who know the brand, understand the market and control the context. While the system gives direction and breadth, humans decide which ideas move forward.
That is what orchestration looks like on the ground. Research and execution in the same place, controlled by human teams but powered by AI. This is how you bridge the gap between an idea and its impact.
Want to go deeper? Watch the full webinar recording here. If you'd like to explore what Synthetic Audiences could do for your business, then get in touch!
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