2 Jul 2025
At a time when trust in data is everything, a quiet crisis is unfolding across the research industry, one that threatens the credibility of insights used to shape services, policies, and products. The problem? Bots.
Recent investigations into four of the largest U.S. research panels (Dynata, Lucid, Prolific, and CloudResearch (revealed a staggering proportion of survey responses being generated by sophisticated bots or low-quality respondents. In some cases, over 30% of responses were found to be fraudulent or suspicious. These bots aren’t just clicking through surveys anymore. They’re using advanced AI to generate individually tailored answers — convincingly human, but entirely manufactured.
For businesses and organisations trying to understand the needs of real people, this poses a dangerous illusion. Decisions based on synthetic experiences and fake consensus can lead to missed markets, misguided strategies, and products that simply don't work in the real world.
This is where RiDC stands apart.
Our panel of over 4,000 disabled consumers isn’t just real — it’s rigorously maintained, ethically engaged, and authentically representative. Each member has opted in, is verified by our team, and contributes from lived experience, not algorithmic invention.
Why does this matter?
Because when you're designing a more accessible product, service, or transport system, there is no substitute for the nuanced, textured feedback that only real people living with real barriers can provide. The assumptions that non-disabled designers, policy teams, or bots, might make simply don’t hold up in the complexity of daily life with a disability.
While the broader industry chases scale at the cost of quality, RiDC has built its reputation on something far more valuable: trust. Our data is not only bot-free, it is grounded in lived experience and co-produced with disabled people themselves. That means our insights don’t just show you what is happening; they help you understand why and how to act.
In a world flooded with fake answers, RiDC guarantees access to real voices.
And those voices matter more than ever.
If you’re developing inclusive solutions, whether in transport, retail, health, or digital, you can’t afford to rely on bad data. Talk to us about how our panel can give you a genuine edge: ethically sourced, community-verified, and deeply human.
