Interview: Why CU and Others Are Using 'AI Synthetic Consumers' — Intellicia CEO Baek Seung-guk
Creatrip Team
3 months ago
Intellicia, an AI startup led by Baek Seung-guk (cofounder of Dable), builds 'AI synthetic consumers' — virtual consumers generated from online data to predict reactions to new products, prices, and promotions. Major Korean companies like convenience store CU (a brand of BGF Retail), CJ, Pulmuone, and others have used the service. Intellicia reports reproducibility (matching human response ranks/ratios) of about 89–91% and has converted roughly 50 clients to paid users. Advantages include much lower cost and turnaround (500-person equivalent in days for a fraction of traditional research cost), ability to rerun follow-up interviews instantly, more realistic purchase-intent estimates, and easy multi-country checks (they cover 12 countries). Limitations stem from reliance on online mention volumes — uncommon or unmentioned items and dislikes are harder to model. Intellicia also launched ParaStore, a virtual store simulation that places synthetic consumers into realistic store shelves to test placement and promotions; CU will use this to simulate in-store layouts. Baek says the goal is not just surveys but a global simulation service that reduces corporate decision failures and social costs.
