Ray Poynter, 22 September 2025 Here is my attempt at an updated Lexicon and Taxonomy for Synthetic Data. I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Synthetic data, according to the ICC/ESOMAR Code, is “Synthetic data means information that has been generated to replicate the characteristics of real-world data.” People sometimes explain the reason… Read More »Synthetic Data: A Lexicon and Taxonomy
Ray Poynter, 21 September 2025 For me the jury is out on the discussion about what synthetic data might be able to achieve in replicating human decisions and behaviour. I am worried by some of the overclaims and appalled by the number of people who reject the notions as being self-evidently wrong (without feeling the… Read More »Neuroscience and Plato’s Cave: What can science tell us about the possibility of synthetic participants
Ray Poynter, 19 June 2025 The statistical trap hiding in synthetic respondentsDiscussions about synthetic data are everywhere. Talking about bolstering hard-to-reach quotas, creating digital twins and replacing whole sections of fieldwork. By design, these records replicate the distributions of your original survey, meaning every synthetic element looks plausible. The problem is that this process duplicates… Read More »Synthetic Data and Significance Tests: Why t-tests are Inappropriate and What to Do Instead
Ray Poynter, 30 September, 2024 In this note I set out what I believe to be Synthetic Data, why we need to define Synthetic Data, and some guidelines that I think vendors and buyers should adopt. I have been involved in a wide range of discussion with a wide range of organisations, but these views… Read More »Draft Synthetic Data Manifesto | NewMR
Ray Poynter, 17 September, 2024 Last week saw over 1000 insight and market researchers from 78 countries gather in Athens for ESOMAR’s Annual Congress. With three stages and a host of side events, the range of topics discussed was immense, but one theme stood out above all the rest and that was AI. One aspect… Read More »AI and Synthetic Data Dominate ESOMAR Congress in Athens
Ray Poynter, 30 August, 2024 One of the things that has caught my eye about the recent discussion about synthetic data have been the different reactions to the word synthetic. Whilst most of the debate has focused on the underlying methods, there have been numerous sideswipes at the word “synthetic”. At first, this struck me… Read More »Most good research depends on synthetic analysis!
Ray Poynter, 20 April 2024 AI is a hot topic, and in the insight and research ecosystem, the hottest topic is Synthetic Data. In this post, I look at what Synthetic Data means, why it is such a hot topic, some of the key issues, and share some thoughts about Synthetic Data and its use.… Read More »Synthetic Data –an Overview, a Taxonomy & some FAQs
Ray Poynter, 14 May 2024 One of the surprises about the sudden and widespread interest in Synthetic Data is that it has forced us to revisit things we have been doing for decades. This revisiting of old practices is useful for framing where we think Synthetic Data should go and how it should be evaluated… Read More »Is weighting a form of synthetic data?