Highlight Launches Twins-based Rapid Testing Tool

Highlight has launched Pulse, a rapid consumer concept testing tool for CPG teams. Pulse taps data from thousands of the firm's vetted testers whose opinions and preferences have informed the creation of 'Highlight Twins'.

VC-funded Highlight provides a Product Research Platform, powered by a proprietary community, research expertise and AI-driven analytics, allowing user teams to test physical products 'anytime, anywhere'. Clients start by defining their audience, start a discussion, and get feedback within seconds. Each Twin is modeled on one 'Highlighter' in the community and grounded in thousands of real-world observations from that person, via their response to surveys and concept tests and their behavior in in-home product testing. Highlight says its Twins differ from more generic AI twin products as they are purpose built for CPG, and draw on years of data from these two complementary sources - updated as further tests are conducted.

Co-founder and CEO Dana Kim (pictured) comments: 'Human research takes time and some critical moments need insight on impossible timelines, We've spent years building a community of real people testing real products in their own homes... Highlight Twins let us bring more of those voices into product decisions, faster, before a team makes its first prototype or spends a single dollar.'

Ian Civgin, the company's VP of Product, gives further detail on the tool's perceived advantage over rivals. 'Most AI consumer-simulation approaches fine-tune a model on a pool of consumer data. The differences between their respondents are generated by the model, not rooted in real people, so answers drift toward the middle. Ask that kind of model about a ghost-pepper chip - you'll mostly hear it's a little too spicy. Ask real people, and you'll find a group that won't touch it and a group that will buy it by the case. That second group is where breakout brands come from.'

Web site: www.letshighlight.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.