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. Predictive accuracy and a statistical interval are only shown when established for the specific result. Treat findings as educated hypotheses to validate with real primary research, not as definitive measurements.

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Collaborative work & resource management · PUBLIC RESEARCH BRIEF

SmartsheetWhich Smartsheet portfolio view helps stakeholders act on workload risk without exposing more source-sheet data than they need?

Smartsheet's current learning center describes Dynamic View for sharing selected sheet or report data without sharing the full source, and workload tracking for viewing assignments and availability. This brief studies scoped decision-making in a fictional portfolio. It does not claim that visibility resolves capacity problems or secures data by itself.

Updated 2026-10-04 · 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.

Would a role-scoped Dynamic View with only decision fields or a summary dashboard with drill-through better help an external reviewer act without unnecessary source-sheet exposure?

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When fictional workload data is incomplete, would an explicit confidence banner or a missing-allocation queue better prevent a resource manager from treating the heatmap as complete?

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For a cross-project conflict, would a person-centered schedule or a project-centered exception list better help stakeholders agree on the next reassignment?

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PROPOSED AUDIENCE

Who should weigh in?

North American project, operations, marketing and professional-services teams evaluating or using Smartsheet, including portfolio owners, resource managers, contributors and external reviewers. Use fictional sheets, people and projects only. Proposed audience; no actual customer, employee, client or financial data is included.

TWO TIME HORIZONS

Trial today. A habit tomorrow?

Near term · 0–90 days

Over 0–90 days, test scoped views, completeness warnings and conflict-resolution layouts with fictional sheets, permissions, allocations and projects. Measure unnecessary field exposure, missing-data detection, reassignment accuracy and stakeholder agreement. Share no live sheet and change no real assignment.

Longer term · 3–12 months

Over 3–12 months, follow consenting teams in sandbox portfolios as permissions, staffing and plans change. Examine view maintenance, access drift, completeness calibration, escalation patterns and duplicate reporting. Utilization, delivery or cost claims require audited source data and controlled comparisons.

What would make the result actionable?

Use versioned Smartsheet learning-center pages, fictional source sheets with a hidden field-access matrix, seeded missing allocations and known cross-project conflicts. Test least-privilege variants, hold project load constant and audit every exposed field; require security, privacy, accessibility and administrator review before a live pilot.

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

About Smartsheet

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