#717: Understanding customers by simulating them first with Mike Taylor, Ask Rally

The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX

The Agile Brand

Business, Marketing

5 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is the most effective way to understand real human behavior to simulate it first?Agility requires a willingness to test ideas that sound strange at first—like asking bots to act more human by narrowing their point of view, or treating synthetic personas as real sources of insight. But when applied correctly, this thinking unlocks entirely new ways to scale customer understanding. Today we’re going to talk about how synthetic research is reshaping how we understand audiences—and how asking the right questions can make these insights feel far less synthetic and far more human. To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Mike Taylor, Founder & CEO of Ask Rally. Mike – welcome to the show! About Mike Taylor Mike Taylor is the CEO & Co-Founder of Rally. He built a 50 person marketing agency in the US and EU, has taught 300,000 students in online courses, and wrote a prompt engineering book for O’Reilly. Mike Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mjt145/ Resources Ask Rally: https://www.askrally.com The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow Don't Miss MAICON 2025, October 14-16 in Cleveland - the event bringing together the brights minds and leading voices in AI. Use Code AGILE150 for $150 off registration. Go here to register: https://bit.ly/agile150 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.show Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Agile brand
0:02.0	Welcome to Season 7 of the Agile brand, where we discuss the trends and topics marketing leaders need to know.
0:15.0	Stay curious, stay agile, and join the top enterprise brands and MARTEC platforms as we explore marketing technology, AI, e-commerce, and join the top enterprise brands and Martec platforms as we explore marketing technology,
0:23.1	AI, e-commerce, and whatever's next for the Omnichannel customer experience.
0:27.8	Together we'll discover what it takes to create an agile brand, built for today and tomorrow,
0:32.1	and built for customers, employees, and continued business growth.
0:36.9	I'm your host, Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1,000 brands on Martec, employees, and continued business growth. I'm your host, Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on
0:40.4	MARTEC, AI, and marketing operations.
0:43.7	The Agile Brand Podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems,
0:46.5	an industry leader in full stack technology services,
0:49.6	talent services, and real world application.
0:52.4	For more information, go to T-EK systems.com. To make sure you
0:56.9	always get the latest episodes, please hit subscribe on the app you listen to podcasts on, and leave
1:01.7	us a rating so others can find us as well. And now on to the show. Is the most effective way to
1:09.4	understand real human behavior to simulate at first?
1:12.6	Agility requires a willingness to test ideas that sounds strange at first, like asking bots to act more human by narrowing their point of view or treating synthetic personas as real sources of insight.
1:24.6	But when applied correctly, this thinking unlocks entirely new ways to
1:28.5	scale customer understanding. Today, we're going to talk about how synthetic research is reshaping
1:34.0	how we understand audiences and how asking the right questions can make these insights feel
1:38.7	far less synthetic and far more human. Tell me, discuss this topic. I'd like to welcome Mike Taylor, founder and CEO of
1:45.7	Ask Rally. Mike, welcome the show. Yeah, thanks, Greg. Yeah, good to be here and happy to dive into this.
1:51.5	There's a lot of opinions online about this topic, so hopefully we can wait through them.
	...

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