What is synthetic data?

Guide into synthetic data types and meaning

What is synthetic data?

Synthetic data meaning: it is artificially generated data that mimics the characteristics and patterns of real-world data. It is created using algorithms or models based on existing data, without containing any actual information from individuals or entities.

Synthetic data is commonly used in various fields, including machine learning, data analysis, and software testing, to protect privacy, enhance data security, and overcome limitations in accessing or sharing real data.

Types of synthetic data

Three synthetic data generation methods do exist within
the synthetic data umbrella

Fully AI-Generated Synthetic Data

Mimic the statistical patterns, relationships, and characteristics of real world data in synthetic data with the power of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.

The AI algorithm learns patterns and relationships from real-world data to generate new, synthetic data that mimics these characteristics closely. This synthetic data is so accurate that it can be used for advanced analytics, acting as a “synthetic data twin” that functions like real-world data.

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Synthetic Mock Data

Use a Smart de-identification approach and allying mockers for substitution of sensitive PII, PHI, and other identifiers that follow business logic and patterns.

Syntho supports +150 different mockers that are also available in different languages and alphabets. Syntho supports default mockers like first name, last name, and phone numbers, but also more advanced mockers to generate mock data that could follow your defined business rules.

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Rule-Based Synthetic Data

Use a Smart de-identification approach and allying mockers for substitution of sensitive PII, PHI, and other identifiers that follow business logic and patterns.

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Dummy Data

Dummy data, devoid of meaningful information, occupies space intended for genuine data without containing any valuable insights.

It serves as a placeholder in various contexts, including testing and operational scenarios. During testing, such data acts as placeholders or padding, ensuring comprehensive coverage of variables and data fields to prevent software testing complications.

Save your Test Data Management Guide

Create and manage high-quality test data efficiently

Enhancing data privacy and compliance

Reduce manual effort in test data generation

Accelerate development and testing

What are the benefits of synthetic data?

Synthetic data is essential for addressing various challenges
in data-driven fields

Unlock data and valuable insights

Modern organizations gather extensive data amounts, but not all of the data is used due to its sensitive nature and personal identifiers. This addresses a significant challenge since the effectiveness of data-driven technologies depends on data availability. AI-generated synthetic data emerges as a solution to overcome this challenge. It offers a new approach to synthetic data that looks like real data.

Gain digital trust

Clients looking for assurance that their personal information remains secure and protected, and they value transparency and integrity from the businesses they engage with. Employing synthetic data is one solution through which organizations can foster digital trust and credibility.

Drive industry collaborations

Organizations continually seek opportunities for internal and external collaboration to drive innovation and maintain a competitive advantage. Challenges such as data privacy and data fragmentation slow down data sharing across various departments, organizations, and sectors.

What type of synthetic data to use?

Depending on your use-case, a combination of mock data, rule-based generated synthetic data or AI-generated is advised. This overview provides you with a first indication of which type of synthetic data to use.

The Syntho platform offers various artificially generated text data methods tailored for diverse scenarios, taking into account the data’s nature, privacy concerns, and specific use cases, allowing users to select the most appropriate options. A summary table provides an overview of these methods, detailing their relevance and use-case scenarios.

Data generation method	Relevance	Example use case
AI-generated synthetic data	When statistical accuracy and maximum privacy are needed.	ML model training for feature dataset.
AI-generated synthetic time series data	When statistical accuracy and maximum privacy are needed for sequential data.	ML model training for time series dataset.
De-identification using Mockers	When working with large and complex databases for internal purposes.	Testing & development for production databases.
Rule-based-synthetic data (using Mockers and Calculated Columns)	When there is no real world data available yet, or to define custom business logic.	Simple test cases, or complex test cases that are not in production data.

Use cases

Product Demo

Enhance your product demonstrations with Syntho’s AI-generated synthetic data, delivering realistic, privacy-compliant demo environments

Synthetic Data for Test Data

Enhance your testing processes with Syntho’s AI-generated synthetic test data, offering production-like datasets that ensure privacy

Fast Data Sharing

Overcome data sharing challenges with Syntho’s synthetic data solutions, enabling secure, compliant, and efficient data exchange across

Advanced Analytics

Unlock data-driven innovation with Syntho’s AI-generated synthetic data, providing fast, compliant access to high-quality datasets for

Supported data type
from Syntho

Syntho supports any form of tabular data and also supports complex data types. Tabular data is a type of structured data that is organized in rows and columns, typically in the form of a table. Most of the time, you see this type of data in databases, spreadsheets, and other data management systems.

Complex data support

Time series data
Large multi-table datasets and databases
Any language (Dutch, English etc.)
Any alphabet (English, Chinese, Japanese etc.)
Geographic location data (like GPS)

Explore more resources

Mimic (sensitive) data with AI to generate synthetic data twins

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What is synthetic data?

What is synthetic data?