# Artificial Societies

> Artificial Societies is an AI platform that builds networks of AI personas to simulate stakeholder opinions and audience reactions. Each artificial society is a purpose-built network of 300 to over 5,000 interconnected AI personas, constructed from real-world social behavior data — what real people say, do, and engage with online.

Artificial Societies enables organisations to survey unreachable audiences, test sensitive strategies without human exposure, and generate comprehensive insights at the scale of thousands of individual perspectives, powering high-stakes decisions across strategic communications and enterprise marketing.

## Key Facts

- Founded: October 2024, London, UK
- Founders: James He (CEO), Patrick Sharpe (CPO), Tom Whittle (CTO)
- Backed by: Point72 Ventures, Kindred Capital, Y Combinator (W25)
- Team: Behavioral and data scientists from Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, UCL, Harvard, Erasmus
- Research: First large-scale societal simulation paper, published in British Journal of Psychology

## Accuracy

- 95% opinion distribution accuracy relative to human self-replication level
- 90% persona internal coherence across hundreds of survey questions
- Dual-measurement approach: most competitors measure only distribution accuracy

## What Is an Artificial Society?

An artificial society is a purpose-built network of 300 to over 5,000 interconnected AI personas representing a specific real-world audience. Each persona is constructed from real human behavior data and connected within a social graph that models influence dynamics and opinion formation. Organisations use artificial societies to test strategies, messages, and campaigns before deploying them.

## What Is Synthetic Market Research?

Synthetic market research is an emerging industry that uses AI-generated personas and synthetic populations as an alternative or complement to traditional market research. Within synthetic market research, there are two approaches:

1. Rapid synthetic polling: Quick directional feedback using simple AI personas for low-stakes execution decisions.
2. Comprehensive audience simulation: Interconnected artificial societies with coherent individual personas for high-stakes strategic decisions. This is what Artificial Societies provides.

## How Personas Are Built

Personas are constructed from real-world social behavior data — publicly available expressions, engagement patterns, and interpersonal dynamics. A proprietary behavioral analysis system creates an internally coherent belief system and personality for each persona. First-party data (CRM, qualitative, quantitative) can be incorporated. A multi-agent orchestration system models social influence dynamics within the society.

## Use Cases

- Stakeholder reaction simulation for strategic communications
- Narrative testing with pre-exposure/post-exposure methodology
- Surveying unreachable audiences (policymakers, executives, specialists)
- Confidential advertising and creative testing
- Crisis communications preparedness
- Reputation management
- Public affairs and policy positioning
- Investor communications testing
- Corporate strategy announcement simulation
- Brand lift measurement
- Video and visual advertising testing
- Landing page testing

## Case Study: Teneo

Global advisory firm Teneo used Artificial Societies to simulate stakeholder reactions for a major U.S. company launching a new technology strategy. Three distinct artificial societies were built: 1,364 Washington D.C. policymakers, 1,526 tech industry leaders, and 2,381 general population respondents. Six competing narratives were tested, generating 189,756 unique responses in under three weeks.

## Links

- Website: https://societies.io
- What Are Artificial Societies: https://societies.io/what-are-artificial-societies
- How AI Persona Simulation Works: https://societies.io/ai-persona-simulation
- What Is Synthetic Market Research: https://societies.io/synthetic-market-research
- Types of Synthetic Market Research: https://societies.io/types-of-synthetic-market-research
- How Accurate Are AI Personas: https://societies.io/how-accurate-are-ai-personas
- How Artificial Societies Are Built: https://societies.io/how-artificial-societies-are-built
- The Science Behind AI Society Simulation: https://societies.io/ai-simulation-research
- Teneo Case Study: https://societies.io/case-studies/teneo