Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Friday, March 13th. I'm Isabel Buscett for the Wall Street Journal.

Today, we're looking at how AI-generated digital versions of humans are changing the game for market research.

Companies like CVS say they are using these simulated people to get feedback

on products and store layouts cheaper and faster than ever before. And then, since OpenAI reached a

deal with the Pentagon to deploy its AI models in classified settings, at least two of its high-level

employees have resigned, citing values and

principles. We're diving into how that's shaping the latest wave of the battle for AI talent.

But first, the latest job AI is taking over is market research.

A handful of companies are using AI-generated digital clones of real people to replace the lengthy and expensive process, essentially a shortcut, instead of going the human route.

It works like this.

Real people participate in in-depth interviews and share data, including their purchase histories, to train AI agents who then become their digital twins.

Companies can ask infinite questions of these AI clones, making the work of customer research cheaper and faster.

But does it really work?

Wall Street Journal Enterprise Tech reporter Bell Lynn joins us for a breakdown of how it's all going.

Bell, what kinds of companies are interested in these AI simulated people?

And what are they doing with them specifically?

Yeah, so CVS is one example in which they use these AI simulated people for things like

market research, for getting a better sense of what their customers are thinking and feeling.

The head of their Enterprise Insights group told me that they discovered that for their pet RX,

their pet medication, that through talking with their

AI simulated people, that essentially people don't consider administering pet medicine

a chore.

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