In Genezio, a scenario is a realistic situation in which a persona has a goal that is related to a specific topic. Each conversation that Genezio runs with an answer engine starts from a scenario. Topics define the general subject area. Scenarios describe the specific situation that causes a user to ask questions.

​
Topics and scenarios

It is important to know the difference between topics and scenarios. A topic defines the analyzed subject area. Example topic:
A scenario is a short story that describes a realistic situation. It gives the context of the persona, the limits of the persona, and the goal of the persona. It is similar to a brief that you give to a person to explain the full situation. Example scenario:
A scenario is not a prompt. It is not a question that you send to an answer engine. Genezio reads the scenario and adds the details of the persona. Then it makes natural prompts from them. These prompts are similar to the messages that a real person types in ChatGPT or Claude, one at a time.

​
How Genezio uses scenarios

Each conversation that Genezio runs starts with a scenario. The process is:
  1. A persona defines who the user is (language, location, context).
  2. A topic defines the subject area.
  3. A scenario defines the situation and the goal of the persona.
  4. Genezio makes prompts from that scenario.
  5. Genezio sends the prompts to the answer engine in the conversation.
With this structure, the conversations start from realistic user contexts, not from abstract prompts.

​
The structure of a scenario

A scenario describes the situation and the goal of the persona. Write it as a short story: one paragraph with specific details, limits, and context. A scenario does not include details about the persona (such as age, country, occupation, or language). The persona defines these details separately. The scenario can use the name of the persona. Genezio adds all the other persona details when it runs the conversation. Thus, these items of the persona are already defined before Genezio runs the scenario:
  • The role or the profile
  • The language
  • The geographic location
The scenario describes only what occurs and what the persona needs.

​
What to include

A good scenario includes:
  • The situation: the conditions that caused this need (for example, the spreadsheets are too small for the team now, or a product launch is near)
  • The goal: what the persona wants to get (for example, find a tool, compare options, or solve a problem)
  • Specific limits: budget, team size, technical requirements, compliance needs, and the time limit

​
Goal description and intent

Each scenario also has a goal description and an intent, in addition to the story:
  • The goal description tells, in plain words, what the persona wants to get at the end.
  • The intent tells the type of question that the persona asks the answer engine. Examples are: find a tool, compare options, or examine a fact.
These two fields give Genezio more context when it makes prompts. Thus, Genezio makes more realistic prompts. The questions agree better with what the persona wants and with how a real person writes them.

​
What not to include

Do not repeat the persona details in the scenario. The persona already defines who the user is. The scenario tells why the persona asks and what the persona needs. With this separation, Genezio can use the same scenario again in different persona contexts. The conversations still start from specific goals. For a step-by-step procedure, refer to Creating scenarios.

​
Example: from a scenario to a conversation

This example shows how a scenario becomes a conversation. Topic: Marketing automation Persona: Marketing manager, located in New York, language: English Scenario:
The scenario does not mention the role, the location, or the language of Mary. These details come from the persona. What Genezio makes from this scenario: Genezio adds the persona details to the scenario. Then it makes natural prompts, similar to the messages that a real person sends to an answer engine, one at a time:
User query: I’m looking for a marketing automation platform that’s easy to set up without any developer help. My team of 6 isn’t very technical. What would you recommend?
User query: Our budget is around $800/month and we need all 6 team members to be able to work in the platform at the same time. Which tools support that?
User query: Does any of these have SOC2 compliance? That’s a requirement for us.
The scenario is the full story. The prompts show how a person tells that story in a conversation: one question at a time, and each question continues from the previous answers.

​
Scenarios and Genezio Agents

Each Genezio Agent type uses scenarios in a different way.

​
Prompter Agent

For Prompter Agent topics, you write a direct prompt, not a story. Genezio sends this prompt to the answer engine exactly as written. The interaction is single-turn.

​
Recommender Agent

For Recommender Agent topics, the scenario defines the start situation. Genezio makes many prompts in the conversation to simulate a realistic recommendation flow.

​
Introspector Agent

For Introspector Agent topics, the scenario asks directly about a specific brand:
  • If the topic has a persona, the scenario puts the persona in a situation in which the persona wants to know that brand.
  • If the topic has no persona, the scenario asks the answer engine to describe the brand for no specific audience. Introspector topics can have no persona.
Genezio makes prompts that examine:
  • What the brand does
  • For which users the brand is designed
  • The strong points and the weak points of the brand

​
Comparer Agent

For Comparer Agent topics, the scenario describes a situation in which the persona compares many brands. Genezio makes prompts that compare these alternatives and analyze their differences.

​
Why scenarios are important

With scenarios, Genezio simulates the behavior of real users. In the real world, people almost never ask general questions such as “best CRM”. They ask questions that come from their situation. For example:
  • A founder who looks for a first CRM
  • A teenager who looks for a debit card
  • A runner who prepares for a marathon
When Genezio models these situations, it can analyze how answer engines reply to realistic user needs and contexts. To find scenarios that do not make answer engines talk about brands, refer to Topic / Scenario Relevance.

​
Change a scenario to a different type

A good scenario is valuable work. It takes effort to write a good situation with the correct limits and goal. Genezio lets you change a scenario from one type to a different type. Thus, you can use the same work for different intents, and you do not write the scenario again. For example, you can change a Prompter scenario to a Recommender scenario. You can change a scenario between all five canonical types:
  • Prompter
  • Recommender
  • Introspector
  • Comparer
  • Fact Checker
When you change the type of a scenario, you can also select the persona of the new scenario. This is useful when the same situation is correct for a different audience. It is also useful when you want the new scenario to run from a different point of view. Thus, one good scenario can give many types of analysis. You can examine the same customer situation through recommendation, comparison, introspection, or fact checking, and you do not start again each time.

​
Pause and resume a scenario

You can pause a scenario to stop it without a deletion. You can resume it later when you want the data again. A paused scenario keeps its text. Genezio does not run it in the daily runs. This is useful when you want to:
  • Keep a seasonal scenario or a campaign scenario until it is relevant again
  • Stop the runs of a scenario that gives you no useful data now
  • Make your analysis smaller for a short time, and keep the text and the history of the scenario
Pause a scenario when you possibly want it back. Delete a scenario when you do not need it any more. Even then, you can restore it, as the next section shows.

​
Restore deleted scenarios

When you delete a scenario or a full topic, the deletion is not permanent. Genezio moves the removed topics and scenarios to a Recycle Bin. Genezio keeps them there, and you can restore them if you deleted them by mistake. Thus, you can clean your workspace, and you do not lose a scenario that you wrote carefully. If you remove an item that you still need, restore it from the Recycle Bin. Then you can use it again as before.

​
Next steps

To see how Genezio runs scenarios with answer engines and analyzes the answers, refer to:

​
Scenarios in the public API

To read and change scenarios, refer to List scenarios.