How generative AI shaped 2023

At the end of last year, we recounted all the major achievements in large language models (LLMs) by the big technology vendors, and hailed the promise of a new application that would soon take over the imagination of the entire industry and much of the world, ChatGPT.

This engaging new chatbot proved a significant tipping point in the history of artificial intelligence technology to date, and ushered in the era of mainstream generative AI, driven by OpenAI with the support of Microsoft, as well as by other technology leaders, including Google, Meta and Amazon. Just two weeks ago, Google launched Gemini, a family of multimodal large language models with the capability to reason across different data types such as audio, images and text.

And generative AI offshoots based on these platforms appear each and every day.

Along with all of this development came the need for focused large volume data to support training of these new applications. This led to a wide range of procurement efforts, from scraping the web to utilizing user data, which in turn led to blocked bots, a copyright backlash and concerns over the use of consumers’ personal information.

The massive upswell in activity made the AI market an unparalleled brightspot in an otherwise underperforming economic landscape. New reports showcased hundreds of companies providing the content, code, design, data and other tools to innovate in this new category. 

AI startup investment boomed, and now the IPO market seems to be picking up pace as well. To power all of this, Nvidia joined the $1 trillion club as demand for its GPUs soared.

However, the speed of innovation in AI has also increased ethical concerns as to how these applications are being used, how they are being trained, and where humans fit in the process. Even Geoffrey Hinton, the Godfather of AI, has chimed in on his worries over the pace of change.

To monitor and manage all of these powerful technologies, new organizations were established for oversight. We at LXT are honored to join The Future of Artificial Intelligence Council alongside The Canadian Chamber of Commerce and participating members that include both large global organizations and promising young startups. I’m excited to represent LXT on this council and work with other industry leaders to help shape a better future of AI in Canada and beyond.

LXT highlights in 2023 

It has been a highly-productive year for us at LXT. 

We launched new Generative AI Services to ensure that our clients’ solutions are accurate, ethical and responsible in addition to commercially successful. We added two new executives to our stellar team to support our business growth – Chief Operations Officer Carolyn Harvey and Vice President of Technology Amr Nour-Eldin. Both bring extensive experience in their respective fields to LXT. 

This year, Carolyn redesigned our Operations division to improve our ability to deliver high-quality training data for our growing customer base and set us up for continued success in 2024. Amr developed a technology strategy for our data annotation platform that will enhance our annotation speed, accuracy and quality. I am thrilled to welcome these executives to our leadership team.

In addition, we welcomed new AI data experts to our team. You can learn more about their backgrounds and what they bring to LXT clients here. The LXT blog added valuable new perspectives on the broader AI market, including the new AI in the Real World Series and the Speaking of AI Podcast with Chief Growth Officer and industry veteran Phil Hall.

Finally, just as our previous Path to AI Maturity Report hinted at the coming generative AI boom with the prevalence of conversational AI (CAI) and natural language processing (NLP) solutions, we anticipate many new insights on the evolution of generative AI in the upcoming 2024 report.

Stay tuned for more along the way, and we wish you a healthy and prosperous 2024.

The post Looking back on a transformative year for AI, and for LXT. appeared first on High-Quality AI Data to Power Innovation | LXT.

When we introduced the LXT brand publicly for the first time last August, the company had already racked up over ten years of AI data experience providing exclusive high-volume, high-quality service to a top three global tech giant – a relationship that saw consistent year-on-year growth built on a strong foundation of trust and customer satisfaction.

In updating the company brand and image, we wanted to not only acknowledge the achievements, capabilities and motivations of our team, but to signal the next chapter in our business. We had already built a successful business by providing the high-quality data needed to develop sophisticated artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. Yet we set our sights on even greater milestones.

We had partnered with some of the largest companies in the world, but we wanted to expand our ecosystem of corporate customers with the ability to transform experiences for even larger audiences worldwide. Intelligent tech, when used in the right way and enabled by AI, can improve lives in innumerable ways. Our focus will always be on our customers and what we can help them achieve.

In the past year, we have provided the essential datasets for both new and longtime customers to roll out highly valuable solutions. These include a remote visual assessment tool for insurance providers, an intelligent virtual assistant for classroom teachers, and an automated transcription service that provides a record of important conversations and high-level meetings in dozens of languages.

To meet increasingly strong demand for our data collection and annotation services, we have expanded our secure facilities and workforce globally. LXT now operates five facilities in strategic locations to provide secure annotation and transcription across a range of languages, with more to be added based on specific regional demands. For example, we have added additional facilities in Canada to support the growing demand for data to train applications in Canadian French.

LXT is currently hiring for meaningful new job opportunities in Montreal, Toronto and other cities throughout the world, and has more than 600 team members across six countries as well as a global crowd workforce of 100,000 and counting.

Another exciting development in 2022 was the launch of our first proprietary research report, The Path to AI Maturity. LXT, in partnership with research firm Reputation Leaders, commissioned a survey of 200 senior executives (two-thirds C-suite) with AI experience at mid-to-large US organizations (with annual revenue of over $100 million and more than 500 employees). The report highlights the growing demand for AI training data across organizations of all sizes and industries. 

Throughout the process, we had the opportunity to engage with journalists, analysts and other industry thought leaders and our intention is to continue this reporting annually, with the goal of helping to facilitate the maturation of AI solutions across industries and regions.

In the years to come, we will continue to believe in the power of technology to change lives, and the importance of putting people first. Our primary business focus will be on our customers, and helping them to achieve their goals through truly global, high-quality AI training data that prepares new applications and solutions to be effective in the world, no matter what culture they serve or language they speak.

Our evolution continues on, and we hope that you will join us for the journey.

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Companies are always excited when they refine their brand and launch a new site. Those on the outside? Often, not as much. But this rebrand is as much about you as it is about us. I’d like to take a moment to explain what this new chapter means for our clients, partners, crowd, and employees. Before we get there, I’ll give you a brief peek behind the door at the ethos that drove this process.

Over the past 11 years, we’ve grown substantially, expanding our global crowd, capacity, and capabilities. But our belief in the possibility of intelligent tech and commitment to putting people first have been with us since the beginning. It was time that we expressed who we are and why we do what we do.

We believe wholeheartedly in the ability of intelligent tech to benefit humanity. AI/ML applications hold the possibility to transform our collective existence, beyond what we’d even imagined just a short time ago. Over the past decade, the pace of AI has accelerated at previously unseen speeds. What we’ve seen until now is just a small twinkle in the sky—a distant star. We’re about to witness a whole new galaxy.

The data that underpins AI is complex. It’s needed at incredible volumes from locations and cultures that span the globe. Data, in and of itself, isn’t sexy. But it’s the essential ingredient that drives the development of the technology that transforms lives. It holds the possibility to build intelligent tech that will free people from the mundane, improve our collective existence, and propel us into a future of endless possibility. That, ultimately, is what we strive to do at LXT.

We wanted our brand to reflect that. If you’ve noticed our new mark, it’s our visual representation of that ethos. The marriage of the natural world and tech. The symbolic transformation of raw data to meaningful data, of a totally new world. The caterpillar turns to butterfly. The old world gives birth to a new future, driven by data, expressed in AI.

To our crowd, team, and clients

We’re committed to providing the highest quality data, for any project, in any modality, anywhere on Earth.

What we do is made possible by the incredible contributions of our crowd, who represent the locations, languages, and cultures that make the world such an amazing place. We’ve always been dedicated to creating an atmosphere—backed by equitable compensation and respect—where our annotators can thrive. Much of our leadership team cut their teeth as freelancers. We understand the benefits as well as the difficulties. We promise that as we grow and expand, our appreciation and support for you won’t change. We won’t forget where we came from.

For our clients, this new website more fully explains the scope of what we can deliver and our expanded capabilities. We understand that your AI is only as good as the data that feeds it. It’s your raw material to transform. By refining data from unorganized opaqueness into something decipherable, we provide you the seed of transformation that grows the technology of tomorrow.

We’re committed to providing the highest quality data, for any project, in any modality, anywhere on Earth. We’ve been working with the biggest names in AI for over a decade now, as well as smaller startups. We understand that every project has unique requirements.

The new brand may look different; it may sound a bit different. But if you’ve worked with us before, the quality, speed, and scalability will remain unchanged, even as we offer new services. If you’re new to us, we promise that isn’t marketing language created by someone who thought it would sound nice. It’s what drives us every day and how we’ve made our mark on the world.

We’re incredibly excited to see what AI innovators do next. It will change our lives, just as it will change yours. If you’re a part of LXT—as a part of our crowd or team—we want you to know that what you do is helping drive that change. That’s what gets us out of bed in the morning and we can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

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