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| Quantum Units Engaging In Customer Research Activities |
Many professionals are growing concerned that AI products will replace human output. In today’s retail customer research sector, though, AI algorithms aren’t merely rendering human subjects obsolete. AI is actually producing virtual people to perform the customer tasks.
Last month, for instance, CVS Health released the results of a business project that it conducted with the software development firm Simile. On its web site, Simile refers to its service as a “simulation platform for human behavior” that “predicts human behavior in any situation (with) a product that deploys it at scale.”
CVS utilized this technology to help its “customer experience team test ideas with AI powered stand-ins that behave like real customers and patients, so (they) can see what works and what doesn’t before real people ever feel the impact.”
What, exactly, is an AI powered stand-in that behaves like a real customer and patient? For customer research purposes, it is essentially a virtual person.
CVS Health has posted a detailed 20 page white paper about the project on its web site. The white paper explains how virtual individuals represent the “quantum unit from which all group and ecosystem dynamics emerge.” Apparently, Simile first explored this technology three years ago by creating a simulated town of 25 "quantum units" (i.e. 25 virtual people) called Smallville, a town where the synthetic people make their own decisions and create their own society.
How? One event started “with only a single user-specified notion that one agent (i.e. one synthetic person) wants to throw a Valentine's Day party … the agents (then decided to) autonomously spread invitations to the party over the next two days, make new acquaintances, ask each other out on dates to the party, and coordinate to show up for the party together at the right time.”
Is there a limit to the size of these virtual communities? The white paper claims that it is possible to create an entire “world simulation (with) markets, networks, and place.” Accountants may be pleased to learn that the paper also emphasizes the need for “building a reporting standard” with data “auditability.”
To be sure, no one is claiming that CVS Health should stop studying its own live customers to understand their needs. Nevertheless, its AI customer research project has clearly explored a future where virtual people will serve that purpose.