SYNTHETIC IDEA PRE-SCREENER

Know which ideas are worth prioritizing, before you test them

Cast a wide net with your early ideas, then get a fast, directional signal on which ones deserve a closer look before you invest in deeper human research.

Pressure-test your whole pool, not just your safe bets

Because ideation is becoming cheaper and faster, you no longer have to narrow to a handful of safe bets before you've had any consumer input. Bring an early consumer signal into the first cut and surface promising ideas that internal judgement alone might otherwise screen out too early.

PRIORITIZE AT SCALE

A quick and easy screening in minutes

Upload your early product ideas, pick your market and category, and let the synthetic respondents go to work.

30 to 300 ideas at once, text alone or text with images
Pull straight from Zappi's Concept Creation Agents, or upload your own
Results in ~15 minutes for sets up to 100, and within 45 minutes for sets up to 300
No fielding, no quotas - a fast enough turnaround that testing your full pool becomes realistic

A CLEAR, ACTIONABLE SIGNAL

Know what to prioritize, and why

It's all driven by synthetic respondents grounded in real demographic behavioral profiles, giving you enough narrative to defend your shortlist internally, without the deeper diagnostics of a full human-led concept test. Every idea comes back with

A trial rank based on synthetic purchase likelihood
A distinctiveness flag for the ideas worth a closer look. A key component of breakthrough potential
Positive and negative themes behind the response

VALIDATED, NOT JUST FAST

Built to hold up against human research

Validated against live human research, the Synthetic Idea Pre-Screener reliably separates meaningfully different concepts at the top and bottom of the pool, giving teams confidence to use it for an early, directional prioritization decision.

88% of concepts ranked in the top 30% by the Pre-Screener also performed high or medium in human research
85% of concepts ranked in the bottom 30% by the Pre-Screener also performed low or medium in human research

It's designed to answer which ideas merit a closer look, not to declare which ideas are proven winners. That's what the rest of Zappi’s Innovation System is for.

ZAPPI'S INNOVATION SYSTEM

Where it fits in your innovation process

The Synthetic Idea Pre-Screener adds an early pre-screening step to the Zappi Innovation System, slotting in right after idea generation to narrow a large pool before human research.

Pre-screen with synthetic respondents then carry your shortlist straight into Screen It or Activate It, focusing your research budget on the ideas most worth understanding, with everything you learn staying connected in one system.

Ready to prioritize before you test?

Talk to us about adding the Synthetic Idea Pre-Screener to your Innovation System.

Want to know more?

Who is it for?

Built for insights and innovation teams who generate or gather more early ideas than they can afford to test with human respondents, and the marketing and innovation leaders who need confidence that the strongest ideas survive the first cut.

Is the pre-screener a replacement for Screen It or Activate It?

No. It's an earlier step. It helps you decide what to research, not what should move forward or launch, which is where Screen It and Activate It come in.

What kind of ideas can I test with the pre-screener?

Early product ideas that are meaningfully different from each other, not close variants or executions of the same underlying idea. Ideas should be clearly written or visualized enough to compare without extra context.

What do I get back from the pre-screener?

Each idea is banded by purchase likelihood, ranked, and flagged for distinctiveness, with the key positive and negative themes behind the synthetic response.

How is this pre-screener different from human research?

It uses AI-generated synthetic respondents grounded in real demographic and behavioral data, rather than live human respondents. That makes it faster and more affordable, but it's a directional signal, not a substitute for human evidence on higher-stakes decisions.

Which markets and categories are supported by the pre-screener?

FMCG and QSR categories in the US and UK today, with more markets and categories being added over time.