The future of audience insight is here: Netcel’s AI Virtual Focus Group’s transform content creation
Imagine having a crystal ball that reveals exactly how your marketing content will land, directly within your content operations workflow, before it even goes live. That’s the power behind Netcel’s award-winning “Virtual Focus Group” agentic AI solution.
As AI rapidly reshapes the digital landscape, Optimizely’s Opal AI - the orchestration layer of the Digital Experience Platform - has emerged as the fast-growing, enterprise-grade AI solution that unifies insight, content, automation, and execution. Optimizely’s Opal Innovation Challenge invited partners to push the boundaries of Opal further and build next-generation AI-driven experiences.
Netcel, has been named the winner of the Optimizely Opal Innovation Challenge 2025, with a breakthrough that reimagines how organisations understand their audiences. Their innovation introduces Virtual Focus Groups powered by AI personas - intelligent agents that reflect real customer segments, critique content, and provide instant, meaningful feedback directly within your content operations/creation workflow - helping teams deliver the right content and messages to the right people, at exactly the right time.
“Netcel’s Opal Innovation demonstrated an excellent grasp of Opal, core functionality, and the ability to solve a clear use case with an outstanding solution. Furthermore, it showcased the power of what Optimizely Opal can achieve and how the Netcel team have become Opal experts.” Said Simon Chapman, VP, Enablement, Optimizely
What this means for content marketers
Marketing and digital teams are under pressure: tighter budgets, rising expectations for personalisation, and fractured customer signals make it harder than ever to deliver content that connects. Netcel’s innovation responds directly to this reality, offering:
- Faster audience insight - testing content in minutes, not weeks, so teams can quickly validate what resonates and move forward with confidence.
- Cost-efficient validation - reducing reliance on expensive research cycles while improving confidence that content will deliver value, lowering wasted effort and cost to serve.
- Emotionally intelligent feedback - capturing nuance and behavioural traits that traditional analytics miss -enabling clearer messaging that drives engagement and higher conversion.
- Experimentation at scale - Testing multiple content variations across personas to identify the strongest direction and increase the likelihood of the right business outcomes.
- A governed, enterprise-grade approach to AI - with Opal ensuring outputs reflect your tone, compliance rules, and data, teams can scale safely and responsibly.
“The team didn’t just deliver a great idea, they executed it brilliantly. What they’ve built truly showcases the power of Optimizely’s agentic platform and goes even further by feeding insights directly into the wider Optimizely stack, meaning digital teams can act immediately on real feedback. This is exactly the kind of innovation Opal unlocks, and the vision for where we can take it is already energising conversations we’re having.” said Justin Masters, CTO at Netcel.
AI personas as the new audience panel
Virtual Focus Group isn’t just another AI tool - it's a revolutionary set of Optimizely Opal workflows and agents designed to eliminate guesswork - giving content creators direct access to immediate audience perspectives. Fully integrated into the Optimizely ecosystem, it not only surfaces insights but also sparks ideas, triggers campaigns, and supports automated content creation.
Using Opal’s advanced AI orchestration, Netcel created personas that mirror the motivations, frustrations, literacy levels, and behavioural traits of real users. Creators can interact with them in the moment, simulating conversations or testing messaging within their existing workflow.
The outcome: clear, rapid guidance that reflects the depth of real-world focus groups - but delivered in minutes, not weeks. It marks a major leap forward in AI-accelerated marketing.
"This technology gives content creators an audience – instantly. Instead of guessing or waiting weeks for research, teams can now pressure-test content in minutes. That’s a creative superpower!" said Phil Heywood, Head of Experience at Netcel.
What is Optimizely Opal?
Opal is Optimizely’s native AI orchestration layer, built directly into the platform to unify insight, content, and personalisation. It uses your real data and governance model to deliver context-aware outputs that enhance every stage of the marketing lifecycle.
Learn more:
Netcel is working with forward-thinking company’s to shape how Opal AI can help to accelerate driving actional insights from data, automate compliance processes and scale research that’s not been possible before. The virtual focus group agent is just one example of how we’re helping teams accelerate AI adoption, drive cost efficiency, and generate measurable business impact across content and product pipelines.
For an exploratory conversation, contact:
Justin Masters, Chief Technology Officer, Netcel
hello@netcel.com | 020 3743 0100
Hear from the NetceLLM team behind the solution and watch our Virtual Focus Group overview video:
