We live in a time when businesses must constantly evolve digitally. For many, improving the user experience of their own products and services is at the forefront. Traditional user personas – fictional representations of the target audience – have been part of the standard user research repertoire for decades. However, technological advances are opening new opportunities to make these personas more vivid, interactive, and informative.
In this article, we explain why your next user research investment should include interactive AI personas. We’ll also highlight the opportunities they present. Let’s start!
The use of personas
Traditional personas and their limitations
Traditional personas are based on direct user research, such as interviews, surveys, and observations. Based on this data, the main characteristics of the target groups are summarized in personas. Each persona has the characteristics of a target audience, such as their goals, desires, and needs.
But each persona also has a name – and that is the advantage. Instead of designing a product for an abstract audience, you design for Karla, Peter, and Minh. This is a great advantage when discussing marketing campaigns or product features on a daily basis.
However, traditional personas have their limitations:
- They are static and outdated: Once created, personas often remain static and can quickly become outdated as market conditions change. Regular updates are important, but require significant effort.
- Subject to interpretation: Teams may interpret the characteristics of personas differently, which can lead to inconsistent results.
- Limited interaction: Personas are passive representations and do not offer interactivity. As a result, real day-to-day questions can only be answered indirectly.
- Not a central resource: Often, personas are created in one department to answer that department’s questions. Other departments create more personas of the same audience to answer their questions. The result: little synergy.
Taking it to the next level with AI
AI personas are the next step in the evolution of personas. They use AI to transform static profiles into dynamic, interactive contacts. Product teams can now interact directly with a persona. They can ask questions, simulate scenarios, and get answers in real time.
This has several benefits:
- Actual answers to questions: Direct interaction allows questions to be asked. For example, a product manager could ask, “What frustrates you about shopping online?” and get a direct answer. This simplifies access to data that would otherwise be difficult to understand.
- Updates can be standardized: AI personas also need to be based on data that requires regular updates. However, these updates can be standardized so that they do not require a complete revision and rollout of the persona.
- Single Source of Truth Part 1: While product managers are asking questions about the product, the marketing team may need an assessment of the next campaign. A good AI persona can provide both, becoming the single source of truth.
- Single Source of Truth Part 2: Because a good AI persona can answer questions from all teams, all teams work to improve it. In this way, one team’s user research benefits everyone.
Challenges of creating AI personas
As is often the case, the benefits come with challenges. We already discussed a “good” AI persona. But what makes an AI persona “good”?
AI can give wrong answers
Even when AI personas provide realistic and insightful interaction, there is a risk that the answers will be wrong. In particular, if an AI has been trained on generic data, it may give answers that are not in line with those of the target audience. This would make it not only useless, but even dangerous.
In practice, this can be prevented by defining and integrating quality measures. A good AI persona should know (and indicate) how certain it is about the answer, or how much the answer is actually based on the target’s data. This brings us to the next challenge.
AI personas need to be based on real user data
Just like traditional personas, AI personas need to be based on user research data. Existing user research can be used. However, a plan should also be in place for how the AI personas will be updated on a regular basis.
In addition to expertise in conducting clean user research, an AI persona also requires technical expertise. What is the best way to structure the results? How do I train the AI? How do I make sure the data is ingested correctly? These are exactly the questions that need to be answered for your specific case.
Privacy and Confidentiality
When developing AI personas, it is crucial to handle user research data responsibly. It is important to ensure that the AI personas are based on anonymized data. Confidentiality also plays an important role. You need to make sure that your own data does not end up in the general AI model.
Again, the appropriate expertise is required.
Why should I invest in AI personas anyway?
We have already discussed some of the benefits and challenges of AI personas. But now, in more concrete terms: Why should you make the move to AI personas? Here are three reasons:
Reason 1: Faster decision making
Everyday questions no longer need to be answered indirectly through team discussions. Instead, they can be asked and answered directly. This results in a speed advantage that enables faster decisions.
Reason 2: A shared database is cost-effective
Existing user research data and all future studies can be combined and incorporated into AI personas. This makes them available to all teams. Redundant user studies, which are common in large organizations, are a thing of the past.
In addition, future user studies can be managed based on the quality measures mentioned above. Knowledge gaps are closed for everyone in a cost-effective manner.
Reason 3: Future-proof
Future developments in the field of user research data also require centralized access. You can create this today and test innovative new approaches more quickly in the future.
The bottom line
AI personas are a forward-looking addition to traditional user research. They allow for direct interaction and offer several benefits that would be difficult to achieve without this approach.
Of course, the successful use of AI personas requires technical know-how, a solid data protection concept, and continuous maintenance. However, the benefits of faster decision-making, more efficient use of data, and future-proofing make the investment worthwhile.
Please contact us if you have specific questions. We are already helping industry leaders create AI personas. We would love to share our expertise with you.
