Qualtrics launches synthetic panels & hub to speed research

Qualtrics has added synthetic panels and a new Research Hub to its market research software, positioning the update as a way for organisations to shorten research cycles and reuse existing studies more effectively.

The synthetic panels are initially available for US consumers. Qualtrics says they simulate how consumers would respond to research questions, delivering results in hours rather than weeks, and at about half the cost of using human panels.

Synthetic panels

The synthetic panels for US consumers run on a fine-tuned large language model built for market research. Qualtrics claims the model delivers "12x better accuracy in matching human responses than general-purpose AI".

The product is designed for concept testing, messaging and product decision-making. Qualtrics also offers a workflow that combines synthetic and human panels in one place, including first-party customer panels, more than 200 million third-party respondents, and specialist participants for qualitative research.

On its roadmap, Qualtrics plans to expand geographic coverage. Synthetic panels for the UK and Ireland, Canada, and Australia and New Zealand are due in the first half of 2026.

Qualtrics also outlined planned self-serve features tied to synthetic panels, including options to extend a human panel study with follow-up synthetic responses. It also described "conversation-based experiences" that would allow brands to live-chat with audience segments.

Research hub

Alongside synthetic panels, Qualtrics introduced Research Hub, which focuses on organising and querying past market research spread across departments and files.

Qualtrics says the hub turns existing research into a conversational system, allowing teams to ask questions across their body of work and receive evidence-backed answers and recommendations in seconds. It also includes AI Summary & Recommendations, which surfaces and links findings across an organisation. Qualtrics says the system reduces duplication and makes earlier research easier to access.

As an example, Qualtrics cited a global consumer retail brand using the hub to answer internal questions based on previous ad hoc surveys, such as how consumer comfort changes over time. Instead of searching through past projects manually, staff can search a topic and receive a summary of relevant studies and themes.

If existing data does not answer a question, Qualtrics says the hub can recommend a research method, including Conjoint and MaxDiff.

Use cases

Qualtrics says customers including Navy Federal Credit Union, Zip, Loop Earplugs and Dollar Shave Club are using its tools to cut research timelines from weeks to hours. It attributed the reduction to a mix of synthetic and human panels, and to faster access to existing research through Research Hub.

Qualtrics also described a project with Gabb, which sells child-focused technology. According to the company, Gabb used synthetic panels alongside a traditional human panel for product and marketing work focused on parents' concerns. Qualtrics says the work delivered insights "98% faster, at half the cost", with findings that matched the human panel data.

Gabb positioned synthetic data as a way to speed up early testing while reserving human research for decisions that require stronger validation.

"Synthetic data became our 'cultural radar,' cutting research timelines from a week to hours while giving us confidence to test messaging against emerging trends. The blended approach lets us move faster on early-stage testing, then validate high-stakes decisions with human panels," said Garred Sheppard, Marketing Research Director, Gabb.

Trust and rigour

Qualtrics is pitching the update as an answer to two long-running research constraints: the time and cost of recruiting and running studies, and the difficulty of finding and reusing prior research inside large organisations.

The company also emphasised data integrity in AI-led research, arguing that stakeholder trust depends on the quality of the underlying data and on the methods used for high-stakes decisions.

Brad Anderson, President of Products, Engineering, User Experience, and Security at Qualtrics, said the synthetic panel work began with a focus on accuracy and is paired with features meant to speed access to existing knowledge inside organisations.

"With our synthetic model, we started with the hardest problem: building synthetic panels that deliver research-grade accuracy. And this is backed by advanced research capabilities that give the whole organisation both speed and rigour: insights in hours instead of weeks, and years of research surfaced in seconds," said Brad Anderson, President of Products, Engineering, User Experience, and Security at Qualtrics.

Qualtrics plans to expand synthetic panel coverage beyond the US, with launches planned for additional English-speaking markets in the first half of 2026.