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About Us

Kortical’s Mission is to End Drudgery

Like you, we hate repetitive work. Automation is part of the DNA of Kortical and we love seeing a task that we used to have to do again, and again, and again, get automated out of existence and watch that mind numbing work disappear forever. In fact studies show that boredom is the top reason people look for a new job, so automation is not just good for business, it’s good for maintaining a healthy, happy workforce. Ultimately the purpose of technology is to amplify the effectiveness of human labour. AI and Machine Learning (ML) are a revolution in labour amplification and promise to change the nature of work entirely. Giving us a chance to end drudgery once and for all.

McKinsey estimates that 50% of all current work activities are technically automatable using currently demonstrated technologies. Crucially it only estimates that 5% of jobs can be fully automated. Our experience backs up their statistics and what we see is that AI can take over the more mundane and repetitive aspects of a job, while moving the workers from more doing roles, to more supervisory and strategic roles.

For data scientists this means letting them try out different types of feature engineering or model types almost at the speed of thought, not having to bother with the details of connecting everything or how it gets deployed but for us crucially this is not at all a black box process. We understand that the automation is an assistant, the workshop of the Renaissance master. A platform where the data scientist needs full transparency over the solution, easy ways to edit it, easy ways to jump into code and the ability to control and guide the automation to create the solutions as desired. The key is not push button automation but automation that puts the data scientist at the very heart of the solution and amplifies their ability to create, to get the best of man and machine.

We’ve been blown away by the results our customers have managed to achieve, typically in the range of 70 - 95% for task automation and for hyper-personalised marketing, driving revenue increases of as much as 56%. When businesses typically get very excited about single digit improvements in these figures, it’s easy to see that AI is not just another hype cycle fad but an incredibly transformative industrial revolution. While the mantra of the last decade was “every company is a tech company”, the mantra of this decade is “every company is an AI company” …if they want to survive.

The challenge for rapid widespread adoption so far, is that currently AI projects take between 3 and 36 months and only 8% are profitable. With those numbers we should expect a data science team to produce a profitable project every 20 years. This just doesn't offer a sustainable ROI for most businesses and is, we think, a large driver of the myriad articles questioning if the AI hype is justified. Luckily Kortical's technology has improved the success rate to 90%+ and shortened delivery to as little as 2 weeks to go from scratch to a deployed custom AI / Machine Learning solution. Our goal is to let people create new AI and ML solutions at the speed of thought and create the AI backbone that can fuel the change in the nature of work.

So far most industrial revolutions and technological advancements have increased the systematisation and repetitive nature of work. Take a photo of a McDonalds anywhere on earth and you’d probably struggle to tell them apart. People man the same station on a factory line or of a digitised workflow day in and day out. It’s quite surprising to think about but the modern idea of a job is only 150 years old, while some of us are lucky enough to have jobs that we are passionate about, the reality for many people is being stuck in a soul crushing repetitive job where they live for weekends and holidays. Their work doesn’t fire their imagination or give them a sense of purpose but is something that pays the bills and keeps their head above water.

AI offers multiple forms of salvation:


End Excessive Repetition

AI can take on repetitive thought labour even highly skilled thought labour for which you’d typically need a lawyer or other expert in their field. This means that almost any repetitive task can be handled automatically by AI, freeing up that person to work on the more exceptional tasks that come in and supervise and train the AI, rather than do the mind breaking work themselves. This can help alleviate the boredom that drives most people to quit their job, improve moral, retention, mental health and business outcomes.


Don’t become a machine

It lets people interact with technology in a more natural way. Computers have come a long way since the 80s where one wrong command could wipe the whole system. AI is now letting people talk to their devices in plain english or read our facial expressions and body movement so it can replicate our dance moves in VR.

AI is a revolution in letting people interact with technology in a more natural way and instead of training people to interact with machines by becoming more like a machine, we can let people be as expressive as they want and the machines will adapt to them.


Enable a post Scarcity Society

Lastly, longer term but we really believe that AI will enable a world with no hunger or no poverty. A world where people aren't so worried about how they can keep up with bills that they keep doing jobs that kill their passion and vest for life.

Currency can be thought of as a way of buying people's time, if you are rich you can consume far more goods and services than you can possibly create yourself in your lifetime and conversely for this to be possible there needs to be an underclass that will spend their time providing these goods and services for very little compensation.

For the first time in human history Machine Learning and AI offer a realistic opportunity to remove the driving forces relegating people to a lower class. In each successive industrial revolution we've automated more and more complex tasks. The 4th industrial revolution powered by AI and Machine Learning completes the loop and let's us automate complex thought labour which has never been possible before and means we can finally take people off the factory line.

The key here is that as we mentioned above, this is all possible with current technology. We don’t need thinking, feeling AI to make this possible. Nobody wants a toaster that develops a preference for certain types of bread and gets upset if you don’t use it or try to put it away. The current form of AI that has no more feelings than a rock, yet can take on the labour for which we previously needed an underclass is perfect for the automation of work.

This is the ultimate end of drudgery, where AI will automate enough of the production processes that we can create a Post Scarcity Society where we can share in the wealth created by AI so all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services. At this point jobs become optional and people can choose to do work they find meaningful or pursue their passions. Some people worry that we will lose our purpose and sense of self. Yet some of the greatest art and science came from people who lived without having to worry about money. Other people will just be content to help out in their communities or travel the world.

We believe that it will result in a great unburdening of society and lead to people living more meaningful lives, spending time with the people they love, doing things that are important to them. Obviously there are a lot of dominoes that need to stack up beyond just creating the tech to enable it, for this to become a reality. We’ll need people to collectively decide this is the way they want to go and to get there in baby steps but the sooner we start laying the foundation, the more we’ll lessen any short term negative impacts from changing the nature of work.


Our Mission

We want to create the automation tools that data scientists and coders love because they are like an extension of their mind, allowing them to create the AI and Machine Learning solutions they want almost at the speed of thought.

Through this and the solutions they create using Kortical, we hope to help transform the nature of work and enable a Post Scarcity Society where people are happier, healthier and living more fulfilling lives and potentially even end the existence of an underclass completely.

We are very conscious of the fact that accelerating the change in the nature of work will be very disruptive for some people and we want to do what we can to help advocate and drive the changes that will help ensure that AI and Machine Learning have mostly a positive impact on people’s lives.


How we help

To this end the plan for creating a safety net that will protect against increased job insecurity in an increasingly gig based and automated economy that is getting the most traction is Universal Basic Income (UBI). A 2021 YouGov poll showed that 65% of people are now in favour of UBI, up from just under half the population in 2017. With the majority of the population behind UBI, we want to help increase the profile, so it makes the agenda and can be implemented before too many people are adversely affected. To do this we donate to and support Citizen's Basic Income Trust a charity that promotes UBI. The growing support for UBI is also heartening that given the technology we may as a society choose to create a Post Scarcity Society.

We also partner with the Learning and Work Institute to help adult learners upskill and adapt in an increasingly digital economy.

Read our full mission statement

Leadership

Andy Gray

Andy Gray

CEO / CTO

LinkedIn

Since the age of 15 while trying to figure out how to dodge chores for good, Andy started to think about how a brain could be recreated in code and developed a passion for AI. He had a career in video games, making games that sold over 10 million copies and then moved to banking where among other things he worked on patents for ultra low latency option pricing using machine learning, as well as delivering large scale machine learning projects into production for major banks.


"We’re still at the start of the AI and machine learning gold rush, where you can just crest a hill and stumble onto something insanely valuable. Our goal is to help people find those nuggets faster and more successfully."
Alex Allan

Alex Allan

Chief Data Scientist

LinkedIn

Alex was lucky enough to do a degree in AI and Cybernetics back before it was cool in 2006, and then went on to do a PhD in Data Science after which he worked as a machine learning consultant in London helping businesses make sense of this new and complex technology. Prior to Kortical, Alex and Andy were co-founders in a previous AI startup focussing on call-centres. They soon realised that the ML automation technology they had built to make the in-house machine learning pipelines more efficient was actually a better product than the call center solution it was powering, so they bought out the other founders and launched Kortical!


"What we learn in training echos in production - Marcus Aurelius"
Barbara Johnson

Barbara Johnson

COO

LinkedIn

Strategy and relentless execution have been at the forefront of Barbara's career. She started in advertising and then moved to digital marketing and ecommerce at the likes of Coca-Cola and Budweiser. The most success and joy has come with working with an awesome team, and that ethos we have carried over into Kortical. We have a strong people focus that we are really proud of, both with our customers and especially with our team.


"Creating something new is easy. Creating something that can last is the challenge. (Adam Braun) - do reach out if you want to join us on that challenge"

Culture

We love what we do and we want to have fun doing it.

We think that in order for a team to work well, everybody should know each other and we have a bunch of events that we do to try and bring everyone together. We do a team lunch every two weeks and ‘Mandatory Fun Days’ every quarter, where we do things like: go karting, VR, escape the room, clay shooting and have a party afterwards. Besides the company run events there are usually trips to the pub and other ad hoc things going on.

We love what we do and we want to have fun doing it.

Our goal is to bring talented people together to make something great.

We try to ensure that there are opportunities to learn from each other. There are also ample opportunities to do something cutting edge and push the limits of your knowledge. Kortical is very transparent and has the belief that if everybody is well informed about what we’re doing and why then it helps them make better decisions along the way and we get there with a better product faster. We’ve also got a very strong culture of best idea wins and are quick to adapt the plan if anyone surfaces a better idea.

Our goal is to bring talented people together to make something great.

We like to celebrate big wins.

With the last big win we went on a ski trip. We want everybody that works here to be invested in the success of the company and we provide stock options so that everyone shares in the success and we all win together.

We like to celebrate big wins.

Data/IP Security

We never share your data. Ever.

We never share your data. Ever.

Data is the lifeblood of AI and machine learning but also needs to be guarded and protected to ensure the data integrity of our customers. Another key concern for customers should be who owns the created IP and in the case of using Kortical, this is always exclusively the customer.

  • Data is never shared with any third parties or other customers
  • Models or other derivative IP created from the data is never shared with any third parties or other customers
  • IP created using the Kortical platform is yours
  • We don’t enforce any form of vendor lock-in you are free to take your models and deploy them elsewhere
Our security measures are certified.

Our security measures are certified.

We are ISO27001 Information Security Management certified, Cyber Essentials certified and conduct regular pen tests.


Bulletproof - “Bulletproof would like to congratulate Kortical for maintaining a good standard of security and commend their efforts to provide a good service”

Sustainability

Sustainability

Kortical is an ambassador for good.

As you can see from our mission statement, Kortical wants to be an ambassador of AI for good and ensuring good outcomes for the world from the application of AI. As a part of this commitment, Kortical is carbon neutral.

We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking our supply chains or any part of our business. Our Anti-Slavery Policy reflects this commitment.

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