AI Use Case - Creating and Refining Personas

Using AI for marketing is not just about speed or automation. It is about gaining new perspectives, testing ideas quickly, and bringing structure to things that often feel a bit fuzzy - like defining your audience. Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT and Copilot, are especially good at taking a well-known and defined task (think one there will be lots of guides and blogs online), and making it work for your specific use case.

It is still important to remember that you are still the expert. AI does not know your audience or your context like you do. It can generate plausible and often helpful suggestions, but it is your input, judgement, and human touch that make the end result useful. Always sense check what the AI produces to make sure it aligns with your real audience.

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Multiple Ways to Use AI to Create Personas

1. Start from a Blank Slate

   These tools are especially good at helping you take a vague goal like "create personas" and turning it into something concrete. They provide a starting point you can work from, shape, and improve.

   You can begin by giving the AI some of your existing content, such as your website, a presentation, or sales copy, and ask it:

   Provide three personas this website is aimed at.

   This is a simple way to gain a fresh perspective on how your content is coming across. It can help you understand which types of people the content might appeal to, and may also highlight audiences you had not considered.

   This method allows you to generate personas without your influence, which can be helpful if you want to explore new angles.

   Note: ChatGPT remembers conversations, so if you want a completely clean slate, start a new temporary chat. If needed, we can create a short guide on how to do that.

2. Add Details on User Demographics

   If you already have a sense of your audience, you can guide the AI with more specific input, such as typical demographics, job roles, industries, or challenges. For example:

   Create a persona for a 35-year-old Learning and Development Manager at a mid-sized fintech company in London.

   This will produce a more focused output that reflects the type of person you are targeting.

3. Refine or Illustrate Existing Personas

   You can also use AI to expand on draft personas you already have. Feed in your current descriptions and ask the AI to refine them, add detail, or adapt them for a particular purpose such as product design or sales outreach.

   For example:

   Here’s our rough persona for a Head of Data. Can you add specific goals, pain points, and how they would assess a training platform?

   You can also ask the AI to roleplay as that persona in order to test messages or copy:

   Act like this persona and respond to this sales email. What stands out? What is unclear?

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Remember

Creating personas with AI is not about replacing your judgement - it is about giving yourself a head start or a new way of thinking. These tools can help you move faster, spot patterns, and fill in gaps. But the most effective personas still come from a mix of insight, experience, and iteration.

Use the ideas above as starting points. Try different prompts, test out the outputs, and always check they reflect what you know to be true. And most importantly, remember: your audience is made up of real people - AI can help you get closer to them, but it is your job to keep them in focus.

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Final Tip

We are big fans of the 'Act As' prompting method. Ask the AI to 'Act as [persona]' to get feedback on ideas, content, or messaging. It is a powerful way to simulate how a specific type of user might respond to your material - especially when refining copy or testing positioning.