**["Stanford Town" Author's AI Company Aims to Simulate 8 Billion People, Valued at $2 Billion in 5 Months]** According to monitoring by Beating, human behavior simulation company Simile has completed a $200 million Series B funding round, with a post-money valuation of $2 billion. The company trains "AI avatars" using real human data. Businesses can simulate how different groups of people might react to products, marketing strategies, and policies before implementation. Simile only made its public debut five months ago, completing a $100 million Series A round at that time. The company claims its revenue has grown fivefold during this period. Its models have already run tens of millions of simulations for Fortune 100 companies. Clients can survey hundreds of thousands to millions of AI avatars at once. For example, CVS Health used 400,000 avatars to study how to encourage patients to take their medication more consistently. Consulting firm Deloitte, polling organization Gallup, and automated investment platform Wealthfront are also using Simile's services. Simile's goal is to accurately simulate all 8 billion people on Earth. However, the accuracy of these simulations is primarily reported by the company itself, and there are still doubts about whether AI avatars can truly replace real humans. At this stage, it functions more like a rapid screening tool before traditional market research. Simile's CEO, Joon Sung Park, is the lead author of the groundbreaking 2023 academic paper "Stanford Town" (Generative Agents), which featured a classic experiment where 25 AI residents autonomously lived and exhibited emergent behaviors in a virtual town. [Original Link]