'Talking to the future’ at the MRS Annual Conference 2026
Simpson Carpenter partnered with Marks & Spencer Fashion, Home & Beauty for a special presentation at the MRS Annual Conference on 10 March 2026.
Our session, ‘Talking to the Future: the Hidden Power of Hyperreal AI Avatars’, was presented by Pui-Tien Man, Head of Growth and Innovation; Rhiannon Price, Senior Qual Director; and Benedict Kenney, Research Manager at M&S.
The conference came at a moment when the research industry was asking serious questions about the role of AI in research. Alongside numerous presentations and important discussions on synthetic data, AI personas, and digital twins, our focus was on a participant-centric application: using AI to help researchers speak to more real people, not fewer.
Our talk centred around our work on Quasai, the hyperreal avatar-moderation platform we developed in-house, and the thinking behind it. Quasai does not use synthetic respondents and is not designed to replace researchers. It creates a new interviewing environment for real participants, with human expertise guiding the brief, discussion design, quality checks and interpretation.
Working with M&S Fashion, Home and Beauty, we used Quasai to deliver a project identifying growth opportunities for footwear. The work helped build an occasion-based view of customer needs, while showing how avatar moderation can encourage candid participant-led disclosure, and probe beyond broad terms such as “stylish” or “comfortable”.
We were grateful for the thoughtful response after the session, particularly to the idea that AI in research can be used to deepen human understanding rather than distance us from it.
Thank you to the MRS, to our fellow speakers for contributing their rich perspectives, and to the M&S FH&B team for embracing a new approach with us.
You can watch the presentation on YouTube here.
To find out more about Quasai and how it can help unlock new avenues of insight, get in touch!
