UCL spinout makes artificial intelligence easier for businesses to use

It’s now easier and quicker for businesses to develop their own AI programmes, and use them to solve problems, thanks to a UCL spinout called Humanloop.

AI has a number of potential applications for businesses. For example, it can be used to moderate content posted in online medical forums. 

AI also powers many of the services we use today, including recommendations on Netflix and banks’ credit decisions. 

But first, the machine learning needs to be trained. This involves a human operator labelling large datasets so that the machine learning programme can understand them. This is often a major, time consuming bottleneck.

Humanloop’s solution, which uses natural language processing, makes it far easier and quicker to do this.

 “The ultimate goal is for a knowledge worker, such as an online moderator or lawyer, to teach a computer to solve tasks by explaining it to them exactly like you would teach a colleague,” says Humanloop’s co-founder Raza Habib.  

The team comprises UCL Professors David Barber (Director, UCL’s AI Centre) and Emine Yilmaz (UCL Computer Science), PhD students Raza and Peter Hayes, and entrepreneur Jordan Burgess. 

Humanloop is based on research from UCL’s AI Centre. It was spun-out with assistance from UCL Business (UCLB), the commercialisation arm of UCL and part of UCL Innovation & Enterprise. The company benefitted from UCLB’s Portico Ventures scheme which offers a rapid process for licensing of non-patented UCL intellectual property. 

In 2020, Humanloop was also accepted onto Y Combinator, one of the world’s most prestigious business accelerators. This helped them define their offering and network with potential investors. 

Read the full story on the UCL Innovation & Enterprise website.