While Everyone Fakes Survey Data, Tunnl Doubles Down on Real People

Audience intelligence company posts 4x growth in real-human survey research in Q1 2026 as industry shifts toward synthetic data

Arlington, Virginia —  Tunnl, the AI-powered audience intelligence platform, today announced that it conducted four times more custom research projects in Q1 2026 than in the same period last year. The volume of custom surveys launched in the first quarter alone matched the total fielded across all of 2025.

The growth comes as much of the broader market research industry shifts in the opposite direction. According to Qualtrics' 2026 Global Market Research Trends Report, 69% of market researchers have now incorporated AI-generated synthetic data into their work.

Tunnl's Position: Real Humans Are the Foundation

Tunnl's platform is built on more than 200,000 annual real human survey interviews, collected through a mix of methodologies that include online, SMS, and phone. Every respondent is matched to Tunnl's proprietary identity graph, which verifies the person on the other end is real, not a bot, before responses enter the data stack.

"Despite growing interest in synthetic respondents and AI-driven research, brands are not moving further away from their customers. They are actually investing more heavily in understanding them directly," said Brent Seaborn, Tunnl's Chief Data Scientist and co-founder. "Synthetic layers can augment research, but they cannot replace it."

Growth Reflects Enterprise Demand

Tunnl's clients include pharmaceutical manufacturers, brands navigating reputation issues, and organizations operating in high-stakes regulatory environments. Seaborn says the 4x growth reflects what those companies need from research providers in 2026.

“We have one of the largest public opinion databases scored on to every adult in our file, longitudinally over a decade,” Seaborn said. “Synthetic research not anchored in real interviews is very likely to hallucinate or revert to the most commonly held views.”

Investing in the Opposite Direction

While much of the research industry is racing to integrate AI-generated respondents, Tunnl is expanding its real-respondent infrastructure. The company is not ruling out synthetic data, but Seaborn says the foundation has to be human.

“We've been built on AI from day one. The difference isn't the technology, it's the foundation beneath it,” said Seaborn. “If you're training on scraped internet content or synthetic sources, you're likely to miss both the majority of Americans and emerging shifts in opinion. We believe synthetic intelligence has a place as a third mode of research between qualitative and quantitative methods, but only when it's built on proprietary human data like our training data set. Otherwise, you're just synthesizing the internet back to itself.”

About Tunnl

Tunnl is an AI-powered audience intelligence platform that connects survey research, audience targeting, insights, activation, and campaign measurement all in one closed loop experience. Founded in 2021 by data and political strategy veterans Sara Fagen, Brent Seaborn, and Alex Lundry, Tunnl serves Fortune 500 brands, media agencies, trade associations, and advocacy organizations navigating high-stakes communications environments. The company is headquartered in Arlington, VA.

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Website: www.tunnldata.com  

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Company Name: Tunnl

Contact Person: Jamie Kingsley

(E) mail: J.kingsley@theprgenius.com

Website: https://www.tunnldata.com/