# Persona-building with AI - Extra work without value? Or super-powered studies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Using AI\ **Tags:** ai-design, ux-research, user-research, ai\ **Created:** [September 24, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://forum.zurb.com/t/persona-building-with-ai-extra-work-without-value-or-super-powered-studies/249 "2025-09-24T17:54:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kevin\_Schumacher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Kevin\_Schumacher](https://forum.zurb.com/u/Kevin_Schumacher)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://forum.zurb.com/t/persona-building-with-ai-extra-work-without-value-or-super-powered-studies/249/1 "2025-09-24T17:54:20Z")
In a recent article by Jeremy Johnson, citing a recent ASU study which ‘pitted human-developed personas (qualitative) against AI-generated personas (synthetic)’ where the human personas won, Jeremy posits that it’s the ‘Vector’ in between the two that actually wins the day. He combines the three approaches to obtain his results: - Qualitative research-based personas - Synthetic (AI-generated) personas - “Vector personas” (the hybrid) ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/uploads/helio/original/1X/e09b1c5a64635dc9daf9cfd81237e80a35be15ff.jpeg) He also cites additional work posted by The Journal of User Experience on moving toward a hybrid approach for better accuracy, faster time-to-value, and update efficiencies(imho - where AI shines the most, updating conditions which have an effect on persona results). What are everyone’s thoughts on this proposed innovation in the field of UX and User Research? > **[Synthetic, Qualitative, and "Vector" Personas: What's the Difference (and...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/synthetic-qualitative-vector-personas-whats-when-use-each-johnson-hb4yc/)** > > We are observing three distinct types of personas emerging across teams, but not all personas are created equal. Recently, Arizona State actually pitted human-developed personas (qualitative) against AI-generated personas (synthetic), and when... > **[Leveraging AI Toward the Development of Vector Personas for UX Research - JUX](https://uxpajournal.org/leveraging-ai-toward-the-development-of-vector-personas-for-ux-research/)** > > Abstract Personas, which represent user groups with specific needs and behaviors, are crucial in user experience design. High-quality personas are based on robust user data; otherwise, they may cause more problems than they solve. Generative AI, like... ---
**Author:** ![ben](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forum.zurb.com/ben/32/442_2.png) [@ben](https://forum.zurb.com/u/ben)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2025, 7:44pm UTC](https://forum.zurb.com/t/persona-building-with-ai-extra-work-without-value-or-super-powered-studies/249/2 "2025-09-24T19:44:41Z")
This is super interesting @Kevin_Schumacher . A noteworthy quote: > it has become crucial to recognize that these systems are inherently non-human entities and have limited ability (Salminen et al., 2020) to convey real-life examples of human experiences and behaviors. Research tools could create a huge database of quotes from particular audiences. This would allow someone to build a resource for injecting real data into formulated personas. Really cool stuff. ---
**Author:** ![ben](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forum.zurb.com/ben/32/442_2.png) [@ben](https://forum.zurb.com/u/ben)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2025, 7:45pm UTC](https://forum.zurb.com/t/persona-building-with-ai-extra-work-without-value-or-super-powered-studies/249/3 "2025-09-24T19:45:22Z")
@MoData , thinking that this might be interesting for our assessments on how we can train them. ---
**Author:** ![nathaliesmith](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forum.zurb.com/nathaliesmith/32/443_2.png) [@nathaliesmith](https://forum.zurb.com/u/nathaliesmith)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2025, 8:22pm UTC](https://forum.zurb.com/t/persona-building-with-ai-extra-work-without-value-or-super-powered-studies/249/4 "2025-09-24T20:22:09Z")
Pretty cool @Kevin_Schumacher! The vector idea shows how AI and qualitative research aren’t in competition, but complementary when used together. Spot on. ---
**Author:** ![MoData](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forum.zurb.com/modata/32/1182_2.png) [@MoData](https://forum.zurb.com/u/MoData)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 7:27pm UTC](https://forum.zurb.com/t/persona-building-with-ai-extra-work-without-value-or-super-powered-studies/249/5 "2025-10-17T19:27:01Z")
This is exactly where I think AI can be most useful for product design! Use it to drum up general ideas that you might miss while brainstorming a persona, but don’t rely completely on it’s algorithm to made decisions for your team. Also, I thought how it was funny that the article lists the drawback of the human-created persona as simply needing a cadence of being refreshed, while AI-created personas need to be watched for “hallucinations and overconfidence”. 😅 ---
**Author:** ![MoData](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forum.zurb.com/modata/32/1182_2.png) [@MoData](https://forum.zurb.com/u/MoData)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 7:28pm UTC](https://forum.zurb.com/t/persona-building-with-ai-extra-work-without-value-or-super-powered-studies/249/6 "2025-10-17T19:28:17Z")
I think the vector approach is how we’re building our assessment right now! Input from the AI to guide our prompt writing, while being driven by training data and now our own quality rating/assessment system to drive new iterations.