The clear case for virtual persona transparency

In today’s world, your brand can’t afford to be late – or to be wrong. Your team’s to-do list includes competing for new audiences or markets, preventing costly turnover, and expanding with offerings. But there simply isn’t time or budget to commission a full survey for everything.

AI tools for market research, like virtual personas powered by real-world data, can deliver insights that are both timely and trustworthy. That is, if you can trust the AI model and how it’s used by your marketing and insights teams.

The big picture of AI ethics

The same rigor we apply to methodology should apply to the technology that enables faster and more flexible research.

AI, like any other tool, needs human oversight and decision-making to ensure responsible use. Augmenting or even automating a process does not mean humans no longer need to be involved. For instance, an assembly lines still requiring quality control checks by a human supervisor.

One of the biggest concerns with any artificial intelligence is the “black box problem.” If you can’t see inside your virtual personas, how can you know the outputs are credible? Valid concern, no pun intended.

Here’s the solve for savvy marketing and insights leaders: ensure that human oversight is part of the entire implementation process.

Keeping a human in the loop at all times

Always being connected with your audience? A marketer’s dream. Losing credibility or sacrificing insights, however, is the nightmare scenario.

Responsible technologists and marketers understand that when using AI, it is critical to “keep a human in the loop” at all times. Imagine that your virtual personas have human expertise guiding them straight away from the start. For instance, a sector expert who can train your personalised personas with decades of real-world data, from focus-group interviews to real-time market conditions.

That human involvement is maintained throughout the continual process of connecting with and refining your virtual personas. This “keep a human in the loop” best practice ensures that artificial intelligence augments, but does not try to replace, human intelligence.

The clear need for AI transparency

Technologists have been training AI models for decades. Without responsible oversight and practices like transparency, your brand risks all of the affinity and trust you’ve worked so hard to gain.

Here are key reasons to maintain transparency with your virtual persona usage:

• Maintaining data quality; credible synthesis must be informed by real-world data and insights.
• Mitigating bias; transparent training and continual testing of virtual personas helps to mitigate bias that skews accuracy and relevancy.
• Complying with regulations; data privacy violations can mean costly fines and even costlier damage to brand reputation.
• Showcasing value; when other stakeholders can trust the qualitative and other insights provided, proving value is much easier.
• Enabling constant improvement; transparent visibility into your AI usage allows for regular refinement.

So, can we trust virtual personas?

Savanta’s team balances decades of commitment to traditional methods with responsible technological innovation. Our position of where rigor meets revolution enables us the full view of the market research landscape. So, can we trust AI, and if so, how?

The answer; the proof is in the validation. The testing of outputs. By leaning into transparency, your brand can easily compare virtual feedback used directionally to real-world feedback gathered later on.

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