Where Product Personas meet Testing: Introducing Cutline Live Persona Journeys
Persona creation as a marketing/product exercise has it uses for refining product thinking, but it’s generally left at the ideation stage and isn’t brought forward as any part of success criteria. Testing, on the other hand, does play a part in acceptance criteria, but it generally dwells in the abstract—it’s “triple distilled” from specific customer desire, laundered through organizations that by virtue of their siloing don’t colocate customer success with test definition. I think AI is going to desilo organizations or their would-be replacements quicker than we think, and so I think it’s time to ask the question: what if we could design personas that could actually tell us what they thought of our product? Literally, give them a test account and ask them for their thoughts?
Introducing Cutline Live Journeys: Watch Your Personas Experience Your Product in Real-Time
See Your Product Through Your Customers' Eyes
Persona creation as a marketing/product exercise has it uses for refining product thinking, but it’s generally left at the ideation stage and isn’t brought forward as any part of success criteria. Testing, on the other hand, does play a part in acceptance criteria, but it generally dwells in the abstract—it’s “triple distilled” from specific customer desire, laundered through organizations that by virtue of their siloing don’t colocate customer success with test definition.
I think AI is going to desilo organizations or their would-be replacements quicker than we think, and so I think it’s time to ask the question: what if we could design personas that could actually tell us what they thought of our product? Literally, give them a test account and ask them for their thoughts?
That’s what we’ve got for you! Today, we're excited to introduce Live Journeys — a feature that lets your AI personas actually navigate your product, click buttons, scroll through pages, and tell you exactly what they think.
What Are Live Journeys?
Live Journeys take persona research from hypothetical to observable. Instead of imagining how your personas might react to your product, you can now watch them experience it in real-time.
Here's how it works:
- Select a persona — Pick any persona you've created in Cutline
- Set a destination — Enter the URL where you want them to start
- Define goals — What are they trying to accomplish? "Find pricing information" or "Complete the signup flow"
- Launch the journey — Watch as your persona navigates your product autonomously
The AI doesn't just click randomly. It embodies your persona's goals, frustrations, and decision-making style. A tech-savvy early adopter will explore differently than a risk-averse enterprise buyer.
The Magic: Authenticated Journeys One of our most requested features was the ability to test behind the login. Your most important UX happens after users sign in — the dashboard, the settings, the features they're paying for.
With Live Journeys, you can now:
- Sign in as a test user through a live browser session
- Hand off the authenticated session to your persona
- Watch them explore premium features, admin panels, or any protected content
The persona picks up exactly where you left off, fully authenticated and ready to evaluate your product's core experience.
What You'll Get
After each journey, you receive:
📸 Annotated Screenshots Key moments captured and saved, showing exactly what your persona saw at each decision point.
🧠 Persona-Perspective Insights Not generic UX feedback — insights written in your persona's voice. "As a healthcare professional with 2 minutes between patients, this loading time is a dealbreaker."
📊 Goal Progress Tracking Did they find what they were looking for? The AI tracks progress against each goal you set.
💬 First-Person Commentary Your persona's running internal monologue: what confused them, what delighted them, and what almost made them leave.
Two Modes: Guided or Autonomous Standard Mode: Define specific steps you want the persona to follow. Great for testing specific flows like checkout or onboarding. Agentic Mode: Let the AI decide what to explore based on the persona's goals and personality. Perfect for discovering UX issues you didn't know to look for. Why This Matters Traditional user testing is expensive and slow. Synthetic testing misses the human element. Live Journeys bridges the gap — giving you rapid, persona-specific feedback that feels authentic because it's grounded in real behavioral models. Your personas aren't just documentation anymore. They're active participants in your product development process.
Try It Today Live Journeys is available now in alpha for all Cutline users at https://thecutline.ai/premium. Navigate to any persona, click the 🚀 Journey button, and see your product through new eyes.
We're actively developing this feature based on user feedback. Have ideas? Hit us up — we're listening.
Live Journeys is powered by Gemini vision AI and Browserless.io automation.