Understanding customer needs is foundational for any business but established methods for market research have their limits—surveys take time, feedback loops can be slow, and some consumers may never get heard.
“Traditional research methods make it really hard to understand what consumers actually want,” said Frank Pica, CEO and co-founder of Native AI. “And because they require deep expertise to interpret and apply, the insights often aren’t as accessible to the teams who are actually building, designing, or selling.”
His company is changing that with digital twins—AI-powered representations of consumers that help businesses simulate feedback, behavior, and decision-making at scale. It’s leading to faster innovation cycles, smarter personalization, and fewer product flops.
From Friction to Feedback—Fast
Native AI helps brands move from guesswork to insight in minutes. Rather than waiting months for survey data or panels, companies can engage with digital twins of humans that reflect real-world attitudes, preferences, and behavior. These AI personas can simulate conversations and surveys, offering qualitative and quantitative responses instantly. They never tire and can be surveyed over and over again.
“It creates an immediate feedback loop where they can test, iterate, and build with real-time responses from digital twins,” said Pica.
Use cases are already stacking up:
- A leading grocery chain tested product messaging with digital twins to forecast purchase drivers and optimize launch positioning.
- A pharma company gauged public skepticism toward a new treatment by simulating conversations with hard-to-reach populations.
What sets Native AI apart is the scale, validation, and enterprise-grade accuracy of its digital twins. With more than 300 million unique AI personas powered by billions of data points, brands can simulate how consumers across segments will respond to different stimuli—instantly and at scale. “The product reviews, surveys forums and other modeling data come from real people, allowing our customers to test and produce data and insights with confidence.” Pica explained.
Native AI is trusted by leading Fortune 500 brands across retail, CPG, telecom, healthcare, and financial services. With a pilot-to-subscription conversion rate exceeding 89%, according to their internal pipeline data, the platform consistently delivers value, empowering individual users to run over 80 tests annually on average.
A Smarter Way to Understand Why People Buy
Consumers expect personalized experiences, but many brands are still stuck plugging first names into email greetings. Native AI helps companies go deeper, simulating not just what consumers want but also why they might choose a competitor and what messaging could change their minds.
“From a unit economics perspective, there’s just no way we could have done that level of personalization 10 years ago without an army of people.”
— Frank Pica, CEO and co-founder of Native AI
And the business case is strong: brands that excel at personalization are 48% more likely to exceed revenue goals and 71% more likely to report improved customer loyalty, according to Deloitte.
A Privacy-First Design
Pica’s motivation runs deeper than business.
“I always wanted to understand people at scale in a way that goes beyond just the superficial,” he said.
Pica and his team have designed Native AI to be privacy-first, having been built around strict consent protocols; and all underlying data is encrypted, anonymized, and masked before processing.
“As a consumer myself, I don’t want my data being manipulated or abused,” said Pica. “How you don’t use the technology is just as important as how you do. We built this knowing trust is our license to operate.”
The End Goal: Smarter Products, Happier Consumers
Pica hopes Native AI will help reduce the product failure rate that impacts industries today.
“If we come back to the table in five years and that product fail rate is down significantly, that would be huge,” he said. “It means less waste, happier consumers, and products that actually serve people better.”
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