Ipsos, one of the world’s leading market research and consulting companies has launched the Synthetic Data capability for Product Testing, using a mix of real data augmented with AI generated data – unlocking new opportunities in market research, leading to faster product launches and insights. Product testing using real data augmented with synthetic data will now be accessible to clients, making its India debut with immediate effect.
Anthony Dsouza, Head of Innovation at Ipsos India, explained the workings of the new offering by stating, “Artificial intelligence systems acquire intelligence through training data. If an AI has not been trained on pertinent real-world data related to your business, it will be incapable of producing synthetic data that retains the properties of authentic data. This principle is fundamental.”
“The evaluation process is equally straightforward. Synthetic numerical data should at least correspond to real-world data on key statistical measures such as means, data distribution, variances, and inter-variable relationships, including correlations. Conducting a direct comparison between synthetic and real data using these metrics facilitates an assessment of how accurately the synthetic data approximates the real data. The closer the synthetic data aligns with the real data, the lower the inherent risk involved; however, some risk always persists because synthetic data cannot flawlessly replicate every facet of real data. Consequently, synthetic data should be utilized only when one is prepared to accept a certain level of risk,” stated Dsouza.
Dsouza also challenged some common myths about the necessity of humans in certain processes. He explained that the product experience is deeply human, as AI can’t replicate the five senses, emotions, expectations, or the context that humans naturally bring to their interactions with products. He emphasised that using synthetic data in product testing isn’t meant to replace human input altogether, but rather to enhance it – by determining the minimum number of human respondents needed to work alongside synthetic data for reliable results.
Synthetic Data offering for product testing makes its India début with immediate effect. This is also significant as Ipsos is the world’s No.1 product testing company and can enhance cost and time efficiencies to clients.
Amit Adarkar, CEO, Ipsos India, thrilled with the AI breakthrough for product testing with synthetic data, said, “We can accelerate product development with synthetic consumers, and it is revolutionizing industries from consumer goods, healthcare to financial services, automotive etc, enabling simulations and data augmentation, without compromising on rigor.”
Some of the impactful outcomes enumerated of synthetic data include: speeding up product testing by upto 50%; gaining of 100% richer insights through exploration of sub groups ; and cost saving of 20% to 60%.
“Successful deployment of synthetic data hinges on the extent to which synthetic data mirrors real consumer data. Ipsos will be leveraging its thought leadership in product testing and the extensive on AI model training experience, to boost market research, agility and reduction of costs, through cutting edge research,” added Adarkar.
