Artificial Societies Secures $5.35M Funding

The money came in two parts: $2 million in an earlier pre-seed round and $3.35 million in a recent seed round.

Backers include Point72 Ventures and angel investors linked to DeepMind, Strava, and the Sequoia Scout program.

The funding comes at an important time, as AI is becoming increasingly useful for understanding how people think, behave, and respond, especially in areas such as marketing and audience research.

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Founded in 2024 by behavioral scientists James He and Patrick Sharpe, Artificial Societies builds "societal simulations" networks of AI personas that interact, debate, and respond to messaging, brands, or campaigns.

The goal is to predict how real audiences might react, offering a powerful new lens into human behavior before launch.

Artificial Societies builds on behavioral science by using AI driven personas within virtual social environments to simulate group dynamics. Early results show their societal simulator predicts social media responses with around 80% accuracy significantly outperforming the typical 62–63% accuracy of standard large language models.

By combining AI with behavioural theory the platform delivers nuanced insights into how audiences might react to messaging across different cultural, emotional or contextual triggers, offering more than predictions, but realistic reflections of real-world responses.

Artificial Societies is among the first to commercialise AI-powered social simulation, blending behavioural science with operations in both London and San Francisco.

While its recent funding will help enhance its simulators and expand into marketing and audience insights, the larger narrative points to a rising trend: the use of social simulation to inform strategic decision-making.

If widely adopted this technology could transform how businesses design campaigns, how policymakers test new ideas and how organisations anticipate cultural or geopolitical shifts. As understanding human dynamics becomes increasingly vital, AI-driven societal simulations may soon be an essential tool across industries.