# Synthetic Data

> Artificially generated data used for training, testing, evaluation, or simulation.

- Category: Models & Training
- Stage: Established
- Also called: AI-generated data, Generated training data
- Canonical: https://www.joelcsaji.com/ai-dictionary/synthetic-data

## Plain English

Data made by software instead of collected directly from the real world.

## Example

A team generates thousands of edge-case customer questions to test a support agent.

## Why it matters

Synthetic data can fill gaps, but quality and bias must be measured carefully.

## Related

- [Evals](https://www.joelcsaji.com/ai-dictionary/evals)
- [Fine-Tuning](https://www.joelcsaji.com/ai-dictionary/fine-tuning)
- [Distillation](https://www.joelcsaji.com/ai-dictionary/distillation)

## Sources

- [Stanford HAI: 2026 AI Index](https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report)
- [Google Cloud Generative AI Glossary](https://docs.cloud.google.com/docs/generative-ai/glossary)