Methodology

The science behind
the society.

AI personas are easy to fake and easy to over-trust. We built Communiti on established, peer-reviewed psychological and cross-cultural research — not vibes — so the populations you study behave like populations, not like one model wearing different hats.

100

Countries with full demographic profiles — states/provinces, cities, occupations, income tiers, religions, name cultures

6

Hofstede cultural dimensions scored per country, applied as context for every persona generated there

5

Big Five personality traits, fixed per persona and held constant across every interaction

Three layers of grounding

Individual layer

Big Five (OCEAN) personality model

Every persona carries a fixed Big Five profile — openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism. It's the most widely validated personality framework in psychology, and it's what keeps a persona's voice, risk tolerance, and decision style consistent across every survey, interview, and follow-up question.

Cultural layer

Hofstede's cultural dimensions

On top of individual personality, each of our 100 country profiles is scored across Hofstede's six dimensions — power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence. A persona in a high power-distance, collectivist country and one in a low power-distance, individualist country won't just have different facts on a profile — they'll reason about authority, family, and risk differently, the way real population research shows people do.

Population layer

Demographically-representative sampling

Age distributions, income brackets, occupations, education, religion, family structure, and lifestyle interests are all calibrated per country — not copy-pasted from a single template. A persona pool drawn from Lagos looks demographically different from one drawn from Tokyo or São Paulo, because the underlying distributions are different, just like the real populations.

How a persona comes together

Each persona starts as a structured demographic profile — location, age, occupation, income, education, family structure, religion, political leaning, and lifestyle — sampled from distributions calibrated to that country's real population data. A fixed Big Five personality profile is assigned. The country's Hofstede cultural scores are then used as a lens when the persona's life story, daily routine, and current concerns are written, so the narrative reflects that culture's tendencies around hierarchy, individualism, risk, and tradition.

The result is a fixed identity: the same persona, with the same personality, background, and cultural lens, every time you bring them into a survey, focus group, or consensus run.

Validation, not just claims

Synthetic research is only useful if it tracks reality. As our population scales toward 10,000+ personas across all 100 countries, we're running parity studies — comparing Communiti panel responses against published survey and polling data on the same questions — and we'll publish the results. We'd rather show our numbers than just assert them.

Bring this to your research stack.

For agencies, brands, and enterprise research teams: ask us about population access, custom panels, and API integration.