Simulated Humans Could Redefine Opinion Polls, Startup Simile Says

A Wall Street Journal profile of Simile shows a startup that raised $100 million to build a foundation model that creates digital clones of real people from interview data. These ‘digital twins’ can be polled or queried by researchers to derive market insights, with CVS and Gallup already involved, potentially scaling to large groups without respondent fatigue. Inspired by The Sims, the approach promises scalable, transparent insights but also sparks questions about accuracy, ethics, and whether AI-generated opinions should replace traditional polling.