The Avatar Advantage: The What, Why and How to use Avatar Conversations in PMR
Simpson Carpenter invited to speak at EPHMRA’s Applied AI That Delivers workshop
Our Head of Growth and Innovation, Pui-Tien Man, was invited to speak at EPHMRA’s Applied AI That Delivers workshop, held in London on 22 June 2026.
As part of this interactive training day designed to move delegates ‘from AI curiosity to AI confidence’, Pui-Tien’s session, The Avatar Advantage: The What, Why and How to use Avatar Conversations in PMR, looked at one of the most interesting areas of AI-enabled research: the use of hyperreal avatars to conduct moderated conversations with real participants.
Across pharma and healthcare research, AI is beginning to influence far more than analysis and reporting. It is starting to change how participants are engaged, how conversations are designed, and how insight teams can balance depth, scale and consistency. That creates real opportunity, especially where teams need fuller discussions across larger or harder-to-reach samples.
It also concentrates the responsibilities of researchers. In pharmaceutical market research, quality thinking must be built into the brief, discussion design, prompts, soft launch, monitoring and interpretation. Whether the moderator is human or avatar, the fundamentals remain the same: clear objectives, careful design, ethical practice and expert judgement.
Our work with AI – including Quasai, our hyperreal avatar-moderated fieldwork platform – is guided by a ‘human first’ principle. We are interested in technology that helps researchers ask better questions and create better conditions for people to express themselves, while keeping accountability with the people designing and interpreting the research.
We are grateful to EPHMRA for convening a thoughtful and practical workshop on a fast-moving subject, and to the convenors, fellow speakers and delegates for contributing to such a vital, evolving industry conversation. It was a privilege to be involved, and we look forward to continuing to shape the future of market research together.
