Prolific raises $32M to train and stress-test AI models using its network of 120K people
Summary
A London startup called Prolific has built a system it believes can help head off that issue, by tapping a network of 120,000 human participants to inform and stress test AI models. And in a sign of demand for its services, Prolific has now raised some funding \xa325 million ($32 million) to expand its operations.The round was co-led by Partech and Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE).Prolific was founded in 2014 and already counts organizations like Google, Stanford University, the University of Oxford, Kings College London and the European Commission among its customers, using its network of participants to test new products, train AI systems in areas like eye tracking and determine whether their human-facing AI applications are working as their creators want them to. )Weve seen incredible traction recently, and have a huge opportunity in front of us so are taking on this new funding to supercharge our efforts and expand our product, and range of participants, much faster than we could have without it, Phelim Bradley, the founder and CEO, said over email to TechCrunch.The company was conceived initially not out of a specific need in the world of AI, but out of a general problem that researchers often face with panels for anything, something Bradley identified in his own academic work (his background, before Prolific, was in computational biology and physics).In short, its a challenge to find comprehensive cross sections of people to respond to questions, and nearly impossible to do so in a timely manner. Given how widely AI is being applied or perhaps more accurately, how widely people hope to one day apply it.The solution that Bradley identified to fix that was fairly straightforward in concept, if not actual execution: build a better way of sourcing panelists.In the early days, he said, the company proactively approached people, going to events and other venues to find them. For now, companies like Attest and Scale AI are possibly its closest competitors.Prolific has built an incredibly powerful online platform for research, said Omri Benayoun, general partner at Partech, in a statement.