Fantasy creates focus groups of both synthetic humans and real people. The participants are given a topic or a product idea to discuss, and Fantasy and its client watch the chatter. BP, an oil and gas company, asked a swarm of 50 of Fantasy’s synthetic humans to discuss ideas for smart city projects. “We've gotten a really good trove of ideas,” says Roger Rohatgi, BP’s global head of design. “Whereas a human may get tired of answering questions or not want to answer that many ways, a synthetic human can keep going,” he says. Peter Smart, chief experience officer at Fantasy, says that synthetic humans have produced novel ideas for clients, and prompted real humans included in their conversations to be more creative. “It is fascinating to see novelty—genuine novelty—come out of both sides of that equation—it’s incredibly interesting,” he says.