# The lies hiding in your customer data

> Businesses spend billions on consumer research that tells them what people claim to think, not what they actually do. Now AI is making the problem worse.
- Title: The lies hiding in your customer data · Fortune | Shortify
- Summary: Businesses spend billions on consumer research that tells them what people claim to think, not what they actually do. Now AI is making the problem worse.
- Keywords: consumer research, market data, synthetic audiences, brand strategy, insights industry, product-market fit, survey methodology, Fortune
- Source: Fortune — https://fortune.com/2026/11/06/consumer-research-customers-lying-bad-data-synthetic-audiences
- Author: Sam Peskin
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: consumer research, market data, synthetic audiences, ai, brand strategy, insights industry, product-market fit, survey methodology
## The data problem nobody sees
Big brands are drowning in consumer data they have little use for, all built on lies people tell about themselves. Serious money goes to the wrong places.
## The insights industry by the numbers
The insights industry was worth one hundred fifty billion dollars last year, with fifty six billion spent on market research alone. How many leaders know if they're getting value?
## A startup learns the hard way
Alfred Malmros ran Anyone, an app offering five-minute advice calls. His product-market-fit survey showed strong demand, but downloads peaked at twenty five thousand and fell to one thousand active users.
## Why people lie to researchers
At a dinner party, most people agree with the group rather than admit their true concerns. We lie to make sense of ourselves to others, not from moral failing but from social pressure.
## The watch example
Ask people why they want an expensive watch, they say craftsmanship. Ask why others want one, they say status. The same person gives different answers depending on who is being asked about.
## Solution one: ask about others
When people answer questions on behalf of their social circle instead of themselves, they report on many people beyond themselves. This tells researchers far more about society than direct questions.
## Solution two: ask about time
Stop asking what people think only now.Ask the same question about five years ago, today and three years from now.You get data on direction of travel in beliefs and behavior, not just a snapshot.
## The synthetic audience problem
AI-generated simulations of real consumers let businesses test ideas before launch. But when these audiences are trained on flawed consumer data, the consequences are catastrophic and results look good but are fundamentally inaccurate.
## Bad data plus AI equals faster failure
Taking a broken methodology and feeding it bad data will only make the wrong answers arrive faster.

> Taking a broken methodology and feeding it bad data will only make the wrong answers arrive faster.
## The competitive advantage ahead
Companies that solve for an imagined version of their consumer will lose to companies solving for the real one.Breaking the cycle of bad data and bad decisions requires asking the right questions from the start.

> The companies that continue to solve for an imagined version of their consumer will lose to the companies solving for the real one.
## Key takeaway

Companies build multimillion-dollar projects on consumer data that is fundamentally dishonest, and synthetic AI audiences trained on flawed data are accelerating bad decisions.