Surprise! The world is accelerating. Marketing departments are being asked to do what everyone else is: produce more, spend less, and somehow make the work better, too. AI is now almost completely dominating the zeitgeist, and when it offers a way to test ideas more quickly, at a fraction of the cost of conventional research, marketers have good reasons to listen. Synthetic audiences are simulated groups of consumers, built using data that can include customer records, interviews, and…