The article discusses Fairgen, a startup that has developed a platform for generating synthetic respondents in market research surveys. The company’s technology allows users to create new and synthetic respondents by extrapolating from adjacent segments in the survey, without using large language models (LLMs) or pre-training on other data sources.
Here are some key points from the article:
- Fairgen is a SaaS platform that allows companies to upload their surveys and generate new synthetic respondents.
- The company’s technology relies on statistical models and tabular data, rather than LLMs, which can introduce bias into quantitative research.
- Fairgen has been used by market research firms such as BVA and IFOP, with the latter using it for polling purposes in the European elections.
- The company has also partnered with other major market research companies, although these partnerships have not yet been publicly announced.
- Fairgen’s business model is based on a subscription fee, with users paying per survey they upload to the platform.
Some of the benefits of Fairgen’s technology include:
- Increased speed and efficiency in market research: By generating synthetic respondents, researchers can conduct studies more quickly and at lower cost.
- Improved accuracy: Synthetic respondents can be tailored to match the characteristics of real respondents, reducing bias and improving the accuracy of results.
- Greater flexibility: Researchers can use Fairgen’s platform to generate new respondents for a wide range of surveys and study types.
However, there are also potential limitations and challenges associated with Fairgen’s technology. For example:
- The company’s reliance on statistical models may limit its ability to capture complex human behaviors or nuances in respondent data.
- There may be concerns about the validity and reliability of synthetic respondents, particularly if they are not carefully designed and validated.
- Fairgen’s business model is based on a subscription fee, which may make it less accessible to smaller market research firms or individual researchers.
Overall, Fairgen’s technology has the potential to revolutionize the field of market research by providing faster, more accurate, and more flexible ways to conduct studies. However, further development and validation will be needed to ensure that its synthetic respondents are reliable and representative of real-world populations.
