What is synthetic research?

Synthetic research uses AI-powered personas that simulate how real buyers, customers, or market segments would respond to your research questions. It produces directional signal — insights to sharpen your hypotheses — before you invest in real primary fieldwork. Gather Synthetic runs AI-moderated interviews across any audience archetype in minutes, not weeks.

How is synthetic research different from real research?

Synthetic research generates directional signal using AI personas, while real primary research collects data from actual people. Synthetic pre-research is faster (minutes vs. weeks), cheaper, and ideal for hypothesis generation and stakeholder alignment. It is not statistically valid and should be used to focus and prioritize real fieldwork, not replace it. Gather offers both synthetic pre-research and real AI-moderated interviews with actual respondents.

What types of research can Gather Synthetic run?

Gather Synthetic supports 14 study types: Brand Perception, Product Feedback, Concept Testing, Competitive Intelligence, CX/NPS Deep Dive, Messaging & Claims Testing, Win/Loss Analysis, Market Segmentation, Pricing Research, Ad & Creative Testing, Customer Journey Mapping, Feature Prioritization, Churn & Retention Analysis, and Audience Discovery.

How much does synthetic research cost?

The first 5 synthetic interviews are free. After that, B2C audience interviews cost $0.50 each and B2B audience interviews cost $5.00 each. There is no subscription required.

How accurate is synthetic research?

Synthetic research is directional, not statistically accurate. Confidence scores reflect internal AI response consistency, not statistical significance. Quantitative projections carry a ±15–20% margin of error. Treat findings as educated hypotheses to validate with real primary research, not as definitive measurements.

← All brands

Design-to-development collaboration · PUBLIC RESEARCH BRIEF

FigmaWhat makes a design feel ready to build?

Figma describes Dev Mode as a dedicated developer view with inspection, design-status notifications, change comparison and links to development resources. That creates a useful handoff question: which evidence helps a developer begin confidently without another clarification meeting? This is a proposed study, not a claim that teams currently have poor handoffs.

Sources checked 2026-09-21 · Simulation results not yet generated

Test a question in Gather ↗Explore fictional demo →

CHANGE ONE THING. LEARN WHAT MATTERS.

Three questions for the GTM team.

For Figma Dev Mode, would a handoff centered on a clear ready-for-dev status and recent design changes or one centered on inspection details give a frontend developer more confidence to begin? Use the same design and acceptance criteria, then record what they still need to ask.

Set up this study →

When a component in Figma differs from the production component, would showing a direct code-resource link or a short designer annotation help the developer resolve the mismatch more accurately? Treat both as test conditions and verify the implemented result rather than relying on confidence.

Set up this study →

For a team evaluating Figma Dev Mode, would a demonstration of one complete designer-to-developer handoff or a tour of all developer features better earn a bounded pilot? Ask designers, developers and administrators separately, and identify the files, integrations and governance each needs.

Set up this study →

PROPOSED AUDIENCE

Who should weigh in?

North American product design, design-systems, frontend engineering and product teams at companies with 200 or more employees. Recruit designers and developers who have handed off the same types of interface work, plus engineering and design leaders who choose workflows. Include current Figma users and evaluators. Proposed roles only; no prevalence is implied.

TWO TIME HORIZONS

Trial today. A habit tomorrow?

Near term · 0–90 days

Over 0–90 days, run matched implementation tasks using authorized designs of comparable complexity. Record time to a correct first build, clarification requests, detected design changes and review rework. Assess output against predefined acceptance criteria; faster activity without a correct result is not success.

Longer term · 3–12 months

Over 3–12 months, examine whether handoff practices persist across new projects, staff and design-system changes. Track stale statuses, broken resource links and recurring clarification themes. Continued Dev Mode use alone would not prove better product quality or faster delivery.

What would make the result actionable?

Use consented team artifacts in a private pilot and independent reviewers who compare implementations with the accepted design and requirements. Capture setup, licensing, designer-maintenance and engineering-review effort. Any business case needs observed cycle time, defect and rework data; simulated role preferences cannot establish savings.

A Gather simulation returns hypothetical customer reactions. Quantifying revenue, traffic or retention needs actual business inputs and validation against observed behavior.

Public sources

Figma Dev Mode product overview and handoff capabilities ↗Current product page; checked 2026-09-21