Room Dynamics, Without the Room
Forget scheduling nightmares, travel costs, and two-way mirrors. Spin up a dynamic discussion with up to 10 diverse personas in minutes.
Synthetic Focus Groups
Conduct dynamic qualitative research with Synthetic participants who build on each other's ideas without groupthink. Get rich, conversational insights in a single afternoon.
- AI moderation
- Persona-to-persona discussion
- Transcripts and themes
Human context, synthetic scale
See how perspectives shape a discussion.
Bring distinct synthetic personas into the same conversation to explore agreement, disagreement and the arguments that change a response. Where interviews explore one perspective at a time, a focus group helps you examine how those perspectives interact around your concept.
Built for iterative researchFrom discussion guide to group insight.
Choose the participants, set the questions and inspect how the conversation develops, not just its final answer.
- 01
Assemble the group
Choose personas that represent the perspectives you need to hear. Groups of three to ten participants offer a useful balance between varied viewpoints and a discussion you can follow.
- 02
Set the discussion guide
Define the research objective, topics and concepts to explore. Use an AI moderator to lead the conversation and ask follow-ups, or choose a moderator-led session.
- 03
Inspect the conversation
Review the speaker-attributed transcript, themes and areas of agreement or conflict. Compare discussions across audiences and use the open questions to guide your next round of research.
Built to answer the next question.
Each capability is designed for a living research process: form a hypothesis, inspect the response, then go deeper without rebuilding the study.
Structured Dialogue
Eliminate moderator bias and the "loudest voice" problem so every persona contributes an independent, well-reasoned perspective.
Instant Analysis
Get speaker-attributed transcripts and AI-powered thematic summaries when your session ends. Review the interpretation against the discussion.
Run Groups in Parallel
Test different concepts with different audience segments simultaneously, not sequentially, to accelerate your research timeline.
Put the method to work.
Start with a real decision, not a blank canvas. These are the questions teams bring to this method most often.
Get rich, qualitative feedback on new product ideas, ad campaigns, and branding concepts before launch.
Discuss pain points and delights at every stage of the customer lifecycle to uncover optimization opportunities.
Good to know.
Do the personas actually interact with each other?
Yes. This is the core capability that distinguishes a focus group from a standard survey. In SYMAR focus groups, personas listen to what others say, react to opinions, and build upon or challenge ideas. This allows you to observe how group consensus forms or how an opinion shifts during a debate, providing a realistic simulation of social dynamics and influence.
Do I need to moderate the session myself?
No, you do not need to be present. You simply set the research objective and the discussion guide. An intelligent AI Moderator leads the session for you. It introduces topics, asks follow-up questions to probe deeper when a persona gives an interesting answer, and manages the flow of conversation to ensure all your key questions are answered comprehensively.
How many participants can I have in a group?
We recommend groups of 3 to 10 personas for the best balance of interaction and clarity. However, because these are synthetic, you are not limited to running just one group. You can run dozens of focus groups simultaneously with different segment compositions to compare how different demographics discuss your product, all in the time it takes to run a single session.
What kind of analysis do I get after the session?
You receive much more than just a transcript. SYMAR analyzes the entire conversation to identify key themes, sentiment shifts, and areas of agreement or conflict. You can see exactly which arguments resonated most with the group and read specific quotes that capture the essence of the discussion, making it easy to turn the conversation into a report-ready insight.
Other ways to research.
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