Simulate an audience

Simulate an audience lets you describe who your survey is for and see how people like them would likely answer. It's useful for spotting confusing questions and getting a first read on your results before launch.

A simulation is a prediction. Simulated answers are always kept separate from your real responses.

Run a simulation

1. Open the survey and choose Evaluation at the top of the page.
2. At the top of the Evaluation page, switch from Check questions to Simulate an audience.
3. Under Who is this survey for?, describe your audience. For example: "first-year university students who commute to campus". You can write up to 500 characters.
4. Choose 30 people or 60 people.
5. Click Run simulation.

A simulation takes about a minute. You can only run one at a time for each survey.

What it costs

Each simulation uses 30 credits, whether you choose 30 or 60 people. Credits are only taken once the simulation finishes. If it fails, you'll see a message and no credits are used.

How it works

Surbee's AI creates a varied group of people who fit your description, with different ages, situations, experience and attitudes, including people who are indifferent or critical. Each of them then answers your survey the way they likely would.

These question types are simulated:

• Single choice, dropdown and yes/no questions
• Multiple choice (checkbox) questions
• Scale, slider, number and NPS questions
• Short and long text questions

Other question types are skipped. If your survey has none of the types above, the simulation can't run.

Reading the results

When the simulation finishes, a banner at the top reads Simulated answers from [number] people, followed by the audience you described, so it's always clear you're looking at simulated data.

Below it is a card for each question:

• Choice questions show the share of simulated people who picked each option.
• Scale, slider and number questions show the average answer. NPS questions show the NPS score.
• Text questions show a few sample answers.

If everyone in the simulation answered a question the same way, the card says so. That usually means your audience description was too narrow. Try describing a more varied group.

Your past runs are listed under Earlier simulations. Click one to see its results again.

Comparing with real responses

Once 20 real people have answered your survey, Surbee compares each simulation with their answers:

• The banner shows how closely the simulation matched on average, for example "Compared with 45 real responses, the simulation matched 78% on average".
• Each choice, scale, slider, number or NPS question that at least 20 real people answered gets a match score, shown in green for 80% or more, yellow from 60%, and red below that. Text questions aren't scored.

The comparison only uses real responses that Cipher hasn't flagged. It updates as more real responses arrive.

Simulated answers stay separate

Simulated answers are stored apart from your real responses. They never appear in the Insights page, the Results table, Themes, Analysis, your exports or your response counts. You'll only see them under Simulate an audience.