Zappi report finds low trust and adoption of synthetic respondents despite widespread AI use
Simulated-people products in other fields — what works, what fails · Wednesday, 2 September 2026
Why it matters
The findings point to a core adoption problem for simulated people: access to AI is widespread, but trust, decision relevance, and evidence of validity remain weak. Spont can apply this lesson by making persona boundaries and reliability visible, validating simulated responses against human data, and embedding outputs in concrete decision workflows rather than presenting simulation as a novelty.
What happened
Zappi’s third annual Connected Insights Imperative report, based on more than 250 marketing and insights professionals, found that only 7% of organizations currently use synthetic respondents, while many remain hesitant to rely on synthetic data for major decisions. Although 93% of surveyed organizations use AI, only 8% qualify as “AI-accelerated,” meaning they apply AI to strategic decision-making rather than mainly to analysis and productivity. Overall satisfaction with consumer insights fell from 60% to 48%, despite 48% of organizations reporting that their consumer data is connected.
Players & places
- Zappi
- Nataly Kelly