Kantar Public Partners for Qual AI Tool

Kantar Public has teamed up with AI-based performance consultancy Faculty AI to launch a tool to improve the data synthesis stage of qualitative research studies.

Old Street, London-based Faculty promises to 'transform organisational performance through safe, impactful and human-led AI' - managing the risks as well as reaping the benefits. The firm was founded in 2014 with a training programme to help academics become data scientists, and now offers software, bespoke AI consultancy, and a Fellowship programme. Investors - who have funded it to the tune of more than £40m in total - include The Apax Digital Fund.

Kantar Public, the public policy evidence and advisory business which Kantar sold to private equity firm Trilantic Europe a year ago, is currently piloting the new tool on projects in the UK and across Europe. Known as Smart Matrix Analyser, the tool is a closed platform designed over a year by a joint team, with data security front and centre. Initially imagined as a tool for the first stage of the qualitative analysis process, including data synthesis, it quickly broadened its remit to include enhancement of the second stage, where the partners say 'value add of human and expert interpretation of the data takes the lead'.

Lucy Joyce, Client Services Director at Kantar Public UK comments: 'We're really excited by the possibilities that are now available through the appropriate, secure and responsible application of artificial intelligence, alongside our existing leading research methodologies. What was really important to us through the development of the Smart Matrix Analyser is that the AI tool is not a replacement for human expertise. Rather it allows us to be more focused on the interpretation and analysis of the data, whilst simultaneously, enabling our researchers to stay connected to the raw data inputs at every stage as they develop and evaluate their insights'.

Tom Nixon, Faculty AI's Director of Government, says the technology 'has the potential not only to drive efficiency and cost savings, but also to fundamentally improve how qualitative analysis is done in future - meaning more scale, richer insights, and more objective'.

Web sites : www.kantarpublic.com and www.faculty.ai .