- Startups 100 names AI startup Unitary as most disruptive business of 2024
- Unitary can analyse three billion images a day, identifying and flagging harmful online content
- Almost 1-in-5 entries (19%) in this year’s Startups 100 use AI as part of their business model
- 61% of business leaders surveyed by Startups.co.uk believe AI will disrupt their industries
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Startups 100 – the UK’s longest-running index of innovative new UK small businesses – reveals that the most disruptive company of 2024 is Unitary, an AI firm that’s able to conduct content moderation at a scale that’s impossible for humans to replicate.
With violent, offensive, or disturbing images and videos proliferating on social media at a staggering rate, protecting users has never been more challenging.
Advertisers have also threatened to leave platforms – such as X – that have failed to prevent their brands appearing alongside harmful content.
Unitary’s patented machine-learning AI can understand if a photo or video contains explicit or offensive content. Currently, this technology can analyse around three billion images a day, or 25,000 frames of video per second.
Its intelligent verification tools can even understand particular contexts of surrounding content that may be damaging for a business. For example, it understands how nudity in a medical context carries very different significance to nudity in a sexual context.
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence has sparked significant AI anxiety over the past year. Yet Unitary is using its tech to bring welcome disruption.
By automating the content moderation process, it’s tackling a vital job that has become unsuitable, unscalable, and often traumatising for human eyes.
In a survey for Startups.co.uk, half (51%) of business leaders stated that they’re likely to hire AI experts in 2024. Other AI-integrated companies that made it onto this year’s Startups 100 index include IRIS Audio, WeWALK, Magic AI, HACE, My Smash, YouMakr.ai, Route Konnect, Athena AI, MVPR, and FYLD.
Considering 61% of business leaders surveyed by Startups.co.uk believe that AI will disrupt their industry, Unitary’s ethical use of artificial intelligence will help businesses work towards a brighter and safer future in 2024.
Richard Parris, Editor of Startups.co.uk comments:
“We’ve all heard about the risks of AI taking our jobs, but there are some tasks that humans truly shouldn’t be doing – including moderating some of the vilest content on the internet.
“What Unitary is able to do is quite incredible – its AI tech can analyse three billion images per day, detecting harmful content and protecting both users and brands who advertise on social platforms. Unitary is truly a brand of the future, and we’re excited to crown the business as our top UK startup for 2024.”
