what I would like to do is introduce to everyone who's watching this uh a small company in Doncaster and they've been going about eight years and they've been looking at artificial intelligence and how that actually works with with companies and they've got some wonderful case studies which demystifies some of the issues around um what artificial intelligence is and how it can be used to increase profitability and increase you know your business um going forward into the next 10 15 20 years when it's going to become even more prevalent so um this small company in interestingly is based in Doncaster in the north of England and it's been going about eight years and headed up by Mark hello Mark and it's quite unique it employs probably about 50 or 60 people in five different countries around the world and it's Embrace technology and it's certainly um in Doncaster is looking at how that can be turned into a technology Hub dcast is quite an interesting place and the local government and Council have decided to embrace that and try and uh enhance what um the Technology Innovation might look like here in Doncaster so um that's a a rambling introduction but let me introduce you to Mark who is the chief executive and founder of automated analytics based here in donc Casta Mark hello hello Andy firstly um the question that I think everybody listening watching keeps asking is what is artificial intelligence how can you describe it and that is a very very good question I think here there's a lot of confusion as to what actually artificial intelligence is so essentially artificial intelligence is a computer program that mimics the human process or the human thought process to produce something that might be analysis it might be a robot that can do a certain human process but essentially it is a computer program that is trying to mimic a human action a human process a human thought process to deliver a tangible outcome everyone's worried about artificial intelligence thinking that it's going to steal their jobs it's going to make things um robotic to the point where they the robots take over but you and I both know that's probably a little bit of an exaggeration how do you think artificial intelligence is going to help Humanity business so I think it's it's the the the real major Improvement that we've seen is productivity so and and I've seen it where particularly when you're talking about staff it's those mundane tasks that they absolutely hate doing that actually takes them a day two days a week that by using an artificial intelligence process means that they no longer have to do those admin roles all those mundane tasks so you know uploading jobs to indeed would take some of our clients a day a week just uploading jobs we do it automatically for them and they've got a day worth of admin back that they no longer need to do likewise in terms of creating reports because you're analyzing 100% of your business not just a snapshot one it happens in 0 two of a second so it means that you're getting real life data on your business but two the actual creation of the report doesn't need to be done by a human anymore and that means that they can spend their time in actually analyzing the data rather than creating the data and by using artificial intelligence your data becomes more accurate so therefore it has more of an impact on your business moving forward so it's efficiency really isn't it yeah it is it's it's it's productivity it's efficiency but because you're generating those two benefits out of that there's a massive opportunity to save cost not in terms of necessarily employing less people but finding the issues that are causing you know the customer journey to stop or to break or the recruitment journey to stop or to break and therefore fixing those because you've discovered them because you know of them to make your business more efficient better means that you may not have to spend as much on Advertising moving forward or actually better spending your advertising so you might actually want to spend more but you're generating more because you can get a better return in investment so we what we've tried to do here is try and demystify a lot of what artificial intelligence is firstly secondly how it can be used and over the next um few weeks you're going to actually talk to people at the sharp end using your product to demonstrate exactly how artificial intelligence can enhance companies enhance productivity enhance um just the way they do things so yeah we we we're very lucky in the fact that we've got a number of clients uh like British gas like Europe car Pizza Hut KFC who've actually been using our AI solutions for the past uh couple of years so you know very luckily we've got a number of cases of where people have actually deployed AOA very successfully unlike you know a lot of companies that are still searching around for you know a case study or an example of where it's been used we actually have those okay well that's going to be really interesting over the next weeks to explore that because what it will help people understand is how exactly artificial intelligence can be used and I'm I'm quite interested to see how that develops but before we go there point of today's first episode Mark is to kind of um establish a who you are but and your but if your history so people understand your expertise but also um where you came from how did this all come about because that's quite a fascinating story in itself yeah go on tell everyone well it I was marketing director of Hilton um I was a head of marketing for Virgin Active Health Club so my background is very much working in service-based you know local delivery companies um and I was commercial director of hord's auto center and I was literally sat in an auto center the phone rang um and at the time we had a a brilliant website but it had a a 4 Hour um if you like booking Gap from when you could book anot at the time and quite manager picks up the phone C running in the phone I'm on your website myot runs out today um you know I can't book an mat for another 48 hours can you fit me in and of course quite right the center manager says yeah no problem at all I can fit you in come down five o'clock and we'll we'll mat your car and straight away I was thinking well hang on a second two things one how can I attribute what's happened on that phone call to my website because I'm clearly missing sales and revenue and that could be a big part of our abortion and the other part of me was like and and that's my bonus because I I'm not reporting the true uh volume of of Revenue that my my website's generating and so when I set up automated analytics we created a uh a phone tracking piece of software that could track the uh the source of the click through to the call so we knew that you know this keyword on Google drove this call but the issue was we couldn't tell what the contents of the call was without listening to it and this goes back to my early explanation of of of of artificial intelligence was that essentially what we we did is we had a bank of people listening to calls say right was it a sales call did it end up in a sale how could I actually automate that entire process using artificial intelligence and so what we ended up doing was creating our first um artificial intelligence solution where we used a um transcription module to transcribe the call and then use a comp Lex decision tree to actually determine what actually happened on the call so was the call answered because your phone system will tell you the Call's been answered that doesn't actually mean there been a human interaction second stage was to understand you know did um you know was it a sales call a customer service call you know an internal call an external call and then if it was a sales call actually that complete journey of right well was it a qualified lead did it turn into appointment did it turn into a sale if it was customer services was it a product issue was it a Chase call what type of call it was and because we were able to use so not only know that right the keyword that's generated the call but understand the contents of the call by putting that whole line of site together to give a complete view of the customer you could very quickly see which keywords on Google are generating the high value sales calls as opposed to customer service calls and so we had the likes of you know some clients were reducing their their cost PR acquisition on Google from £15 down to2 so significant saving in cost didn't mean they spent less it just means that they could generate more sales of the type of sale that they wanted to finding things out about their business you we had we had another client who who was using that that platform not only for attributing their marketing but understanding the customer services journey and discovered that um they had a break in their their um customer Journey um that essentially they were generating a lot of repeat calls because they weren't answering the issue on the first call just by solving that problem they save 44 million pounds in operating costs over year so that you you then took that concept this this problem that you had en en encountered and use technology to just make your life more efficient so you can get your yeah I mean I mean we we we honestly listening to calls is probably the hardest you know no one wants to do it and um I probably haven't listened to a call for about four years now because one uh our customers or clients can see the the uh transcript of the call um but two because the AI is so accurate predicting what what the contents of that call means is that you can you know we analyze 10,000 calls in0 two a second with a 91% accuracy that's pretty good for an for an AI model and so what it's enabled us to do is provide our clients with those productivity increases so rather than seeing a call center as a you know a costly Center it certainly flips it on its to actually being well actually we can turn this into a profit Center yeah well we're going we're going to come on to call centers um a little late while you are um in our conversations but Halfords was important because that gave you that the foundations of knowledge of what could be achieved by technology absolutely and and to be fair what happened next the well the management team I mean that working at half has taught me how to run a business if I'm honest you Duncan B Andy who who my fellow colleagues on exec uh board were were were were brilliant mentors in a way and so the the kind of using AI to analyze calls and sales uh whether it be online or offline was the first stage but what we found was that the solution was so effective at generating sales we get clients saying to us W can you slow down because we haven't got enough staff and being the entrepreneurial person that I am I thought don't worry I'll find you some staff so we repurposed uh the programmatic um advertising solution that we created for Google because whilst it's great analyzing calls and you've got loads of what I would call conversion data well you got to do something with it and and you know changing Google or amending Google is can be a full-time job if you can automate that whole process through a programmatic bidding AI solution well then again you're sing yourself a load of time and you can react quicker to change in the market we repurpose that programmatic bidding model into a recruitment solution so recruitment today is very much online but it's still an offline element to it in terms of the interview in terms of the process of of uh of of a conversion if you like so um we created our talent track solution which automates the the management of your campaign so we we push the job or the vacancy out to whether it's a job board search or social media we generate the application we push it into the client's you know applicant tracking system but what we're then doing is we're then um checking to see well what's actually happened to that candidate and then using that data in an AI bidding model to then buy or or purchase media based on when there is a higher probability of getting a higher rather than just an application so for the for likes to some of our American clients you know they had a cost for higher of $56 we've got that down to $17 within three months we've got clients in the UK where they were spending £5,000 um generating you know hiring a nurse from an agency we've got that cost down to just below £700 you know we've got a client who spent a lot of money on recruitment agencies you know 26 million they now spending around 7 million so we're going to come on to each of those little component parts those are important but I'm I'm I'm still interested in your Genesis because um you saw this eight eight years ago and and the issues you experienced at Halfords and you solved a problem and you know explain what explain Halford they they deal with millions and millions of parts of information and you're trying to Cy and get it make make it the most efficient way of actually understanding where a part was um what how to get hold of that etc etc and that was kind of how you yeah yeah it was I I me it it was the The Haves experience kind of um you know kind of got me down the track of of leading me to think hang on a second calls are a big part of the online Journey we need to be tracking them my my next uh uh private Equity um gig was um with a company called iander glazing locks which was B2B um insurance services company and then wanted to move into b2c I created the worlds for first locksmith booking engine I was very proud of it very proud of it bit like uber for locksmith you could see where the locksmith was how far it was away no one used it they all phoned up saying I'm outside my house yeah um I um you know I need a locksmith now when can he come and so again when you look at a client Journey if there's any emergency element do it yes you probably want them to go down an online Journey but actually a lot of people go down an offline telephone basis and and really what I was trying to do and what I've the way automated analytics was set up is I'm trying to solve a problem it just so happened that AI was actually the best thing that I could use to solve that problem whereas sometimes people will create something and then try and find the solution to solve it these were generating you know real world problems that happen every day that right how do we fix that problem actually Ai and a complex decision tree or a latency model yet they're the best models to use in that application when you of course 8 years is a long time ago you think how fast technology moves yes and you've gradually kind of matured but led the way in how technology can be used to drive you know products or services in a different direction and that's been very pioneering I mean certainly um the some of the the the brands that you are now working with are extraordinary which we will go on to um when did you see this this giant leap and change because it's it's only in the last two three years that everyone's become aware of AI and now they're either worried about it want to know how to use it what does it mean for our businesses individuals um so that you've seen that journey and you've observed that what what do you think changed people's um you know recognition of of this technology and how it could be used I I think the proof is in the pudding and I think uh you know the way we approach a lot of clients is a proof of concept or a pilot to actually demonstrate this can be done and and I think the there is a lot of confusion I think there's a lot of nervousness or or you know how's this going to affect my business is it going to have a negative impact yeah um W which you know we we sometimes face and and you know and I think sometimes the media portray it is is a bad thing when actually you know in the in the right circumstances is a very very good thing you know it's not about replacing jobs it's about making that person more efficient um at the end of the day and for us you know we're very looking the fact that Don C is our Center of Excellence yes we have offices around the world but have a very very capable team and we've had a great relationship with Sheffield University who um when we first started working with them we thought we were going to get more knowledge from them I think it was the other way around to begin with to understand how we've got our platform to work so well but you know there are several different challenges in getting AI to work and we've just faced into getting each element right so for example we've created our own transcription solution yes you can go out and buy transcription solution off the peg tomorrow if you wanted to that's AI based we decided to develop our own because what was available on the market just wasn't good enough for what we wanted and so we've approached this of we want to create best-in class to solve the problem you know not just make do and deliver you know a a a solution that doesn't fully work and so for us we're always looking at improving you know the quality of what we do for our clients and a lot of our development is actually through client adoption and and client feedback is is a lot of our clients come to us and say look you know could it do this or can we check for that or can we change the model which is why what we've developed it's fully scalable for a business it's not one model one size fits all each of our clients have their own model yeah which well I think is quite interesting because you've you've said many times um that you've had to go through a process of educating customers clients into understanding what artificial intelligence is because they have a preconception which is complet completely off scale compared to the reality of actually doing it which is interesting I mean you you tell of a couple of Journeys you've had trying to explain to people what artificial intelligence is and they they fear it but then when they break it down they go hang on that's just efficiency yeah it is and I think also one of the big things to remember about AI is we term it supervised versus unsupervised so all of our models are supervised and and I kind of describe it as it's like when you go tempin bowling and you've got like the rails up yeah supervised model is you're trying to keep the model you know answering and analyzing and delivering the right type of data there is a little bit of human intervention unsupervised you take the the bowling rails off and it could go anywhere and I think that's where some of the confusion is is is you know a lot of AI models are or the best AI models are very much supervised and it's the degree of supervision obviously in terms of of generating that accuracy depends on the model that you use but even when you look at self-driving cars you know why isn't there a self-driving car because you know they've got to learn you know and that's why they're in certain cities they've got to learn the routes and and you know someone steps out what do I do they've got to tell a computer what to do it still needs human intervention but having said that though if you get a bucket and stick it over the center of of a self-driving car it kills the car immediately and stops driving so even even the best techn ol and and the best one in the world there's always a f so on it at the end of the day and that's why you know I can understand why people think oh you know is AI going to cost my job no what it's going to do is actually to improve your working conditions your working life because you're don't going have to do those mundane tasks anymore and that's where I I see AI is really having the most benefit yeah I what I think is really interesting is a lot of people have talked about AI a lot of businesses say they understand it they're doing it the reality is they're not it's a lot of theory rather than practice and I think um certainly um having listened to Don Caster's councils and local governments aspirations they've seen you and other small companies in Doncaster not just talking about it you're doing it and have been doing it for a while so you're pioneering this Evolution technology Evolution here in the in the north of England which is fantastic tell me tell me how donc cast have supported because they have genuinely yeah no I mean I mean I mean they they they have been uh brilliant and you know by the way blame the wife um I'm talking about why why is it is the technology you've got some brilliant stuff all around come from donc cast and around here correct they get it yes and and we we we're very lucky in the fact that um you know dcast in itself is a is a fantastic City I'm delighted they've got City Sates because we deserve it um sometimes gets talked down shouldn't be it was the center you know of the Industrial Revolution for the railway industry you know that that just doesn't happen overnight and so for me with doncar we want to make doncar Center of Excellence for AI because there isn't one in the UK and you know we've had a lot of due diligence done on us over the years and what we do is pretty unique so we're told and so for me what we're giving people in doncar the opportunity of you know you don't have to go to Sheffield you don't have to go to Le you don't have to go to London there's a technology company in Donas that that you really can support you and seen it I mean I mean the counsel is has been quite right this is amazing because he's been exposed to companies like automated analytics and others in fenis and he's recognized that there's there's brilliant brains in this this part of the world part of the country that actually could genuinely make Ai and donc cast a technology hub for the innovation of UK's you know plans to become an AI Center EX in the world absolutely and and it's they're leading that yeah and it's very exciting to be part of I mean to be fair um to the city of Don Costa Council to the Chamber of Commerce um you know to our local MPS Ed and Rosie they've been very very supportive of us I mean we've gone from you know 400 clients uh in the UK to three and a half thousand in America in the last 12 months so we now have over 4,000 clients globally that that's pretty phenomenal growth um and you know it's because we've got a great team here but we have a great team we have a coding lab in in Thailand we have offices in the State support our American clients but Don Castle will always be the center of excellence and so we're working with the local Council you know even on education and we're looking at can we create a certification in ai ai want to help with the education but to obviously to support our future development so it's not just a case of supporting the chamber or chamber supporting us or Council supporting us or doing you know doing the council's recruitment for them or working with NHS it really is about helping the local community because I think think we've got a fantastic opportunity in front of us you can you can you can sense it I mean just talking to um some of your incredible staff and and and I didn't realize that not far from here some of the world's biggest gaming centers and gaming um development happen happened here in the north of England around donter and others now to qualify that I think this is a great story and I know you're going to talk about this directly to these people um a big company in the United States probably one of the biggest had a task to try and find a company that could solve a solution for them and um they searched spent thousands and thousands of pounds finding a company and it just so happened the only company in the world that could deliver what they wanted was you which is an extraordinary story explain because I think it's amazing so um yeah we we were um we were looking to launch in the state we we' managed to find ourselves uh a great partner and um but you know sometimes with American Business semi UK businesses is well do I want to work with someone not from around here um you know why pick a um a smaller technology company in the UK why don't we pick America's biggest to go and work with and uh what was fascinating about it is is it was a lot of due diligence you know I was how did they find just the story of finding you well well we we actually turned uh what we actually did was we did a a trial in the UK for one of their clients it went fantastically well so we went from this client you know generating one or two hires for their management positions a month generating nine in the first month for one region let alone the UK so that that that got them interested and they kind of said look we we've got these UK clients but we've actually got you know several thousand in the states um we then went through a process of diligence I'm gonna stop you because you've missed the most important part of this which I know you're going to speak to this particular lady um and I remember her saying at a conf this this seminar which we did in Westminster that um she was tasked with sourcing a company and um she came across you from obviously your the work you had done with the client um in a tiny way in the United Kingdom and she sat there and said where's donter who is this company and they're British are you sure and she had to justify then going to the board yep and try and explain to them that there's no one in the US there's no one else around the world it's this tiny little company in donc cast that come up with a solution that's that's for me extraordinary that is that is kind of yeah that is exactly what happened so they spent three months trying to find America's biggest yeah that did what we did and then realized after three months actually there's no one that does what automated analytics do we need to partner with these guys yeah uh and it's been a very very successful uh partnership how massive are they by the way talking AR we yes we are I mean I mean without naming I think you're going to speak to yeah I mean I mean you know they are a unicorn um they are I'm incredibly proud to work with them because as as a software group we've learned a lot from they've been a great partner for us um you know very easy to work with once we've got through due diligence of course um you know and they many asleep this night thinking this is going to happen they're going to pick someone Amica they're going to find someone America does what we do but it was such a stamp of approval that someone had spent three months actually what you have got is unique it's like when we worked with sheff University we first started talking to them and and they came across so we did and they was just looking us how how have you done this but you know how do you get to a 91% accuracy of your data we're struggling to get to 50 so how are you doing it and and that's you know some very very good academic leaders in in in the a industry that that have had multiple global awards coming to us saying how have you done this and I must admit you know I I I did write the first algorithm with our CTO it's gone beyond my technical capability now I mean now now I'm not even allowed to code because I break stuff they they keep me off the keyboard obviously I understand how it works but we've moved it on to such a level but what an amazing that is exciting yeah the fact that you know a small company in Doncaster was the only company in the world and that's not an exaggeration she was she was very blunt about that in in the only the way the Americans can be and um I'm when you talk to her which you will um I hope she articulates that because I thought that was totally fascinating they could have gone to any of the tech tech Valley companies yes in the united St and they didn't you were it and I think one of the reasons behind that is we we've never really put our head above the parit because I I wanted to make sure that we had something that wasn't copiable because we looked at doing a patent a couple of uh years ago decided not to because the story of the one you know the guy who invented the windup radio died po because someone else slightly changed his pattern created you know an equally good windup radio and he lost all of his sales so I'd say for a few years we we were you know a little bit hunkered down because we wanted to make sure what we had was unique but to get that stamp of approval from our partners in the States was amazing you know really really was um I must Adit that was a nice glass of wine that night when I when I when I discovered that fact but the and again the fact that you know a lot of people are still considering well how can we use AO what can we do with it you we've been using AO for years for a number of years and delivering tangible results that to me is the benefit of AO is those tangible results yeah so I mean that's a great story and there's a lot to unpack by the way from this episode one conversation and and Mark is going to take that on and speak to every single one one of those individuals so you get a little bit more understanding about how and what and exactly you know how AI can be used what I've been also fascinated with Mark is fact that um um the government and certainly the local MPS have have been brilliant for you they've seen what potential this small company and Doncaster has um particularly the two local MPS they've been very supportive they get it they can see that way way Innovation and artificial intelligence can absolutely be you know crucial to the GDP of Great Britain PLC and and that's that's been wonderful for you they put their arms around you absolutely I mean we we had Dame Ros Winston visited us last week uh Deputy speaker um you know MP for Central donc Ed Milan's been here as well what's interesting is is that we had our Parliament event uh just before Christmas and we had 150 people there and and Dame Rosie walked in he's like oh my God there's 150 people here I think she was quite surprised at our strength and depth and and and the clients that we have again you know there was this I think there was this activity and I was guilty of doing of talking doncar down a couple years ago we got to stop doing it you know doncar is is a great City you know with Fame for Innovation within Railways it's not too far of a stretch to get it into into Ai and technology and therefore it's great to have you know their backing and and and you know as you say that their if if you like their knowledge and and and also supporting us and pushing us forward which is is great to have that kind of you know that local support because we are a contributor to local economy absolutely you know um and and I want to continue that because icr role locally is I really believe we can put Don Coster on the map for locally very important and I I was really um I was really very pleased because I think this has been colorblind politically I think the way um the local MPS have embraced you the company and Doncaster is one thing but I like the fact that um even the current government what it's done it's set up this AI incubator at the cabinet office certainly what they're going to try and Achieve and what they want to achieve I think is really brilliant and you can see the local MP's input into that would you like to contribute to that you think you think automative has a place in that um those conversations yeah absolutely because I I think one not only with with you know we can demonstrate the application of AI and for a number of businesses and the benefit it has but also internationally you know it still amazes me that we have more clients in the US than the UK but we're a UK company and we've been around a longer time in the UK than we have in the US and I think there's a lot to learn I think it's great that the government are putting you know a stake in the ground um you know I really see this as Internet 3.0 if that's what you want to call it you know I I remember back in the day I was still at school when the internet first came out um and then you know when it's Lally been developed you know 2.0 and and I do really see this is the next Evolution um of technology and it is you know in what we've seen it's had a massive impact on the clients the businesses we've worked with this is our competitive Advantage right you know we we want the UK to be a leader in growth in in the Euro Zone and and and you know economy in the G7 worldwide this is our competitive Advantage this is how we become you know more efficient we we increase productivity and I think it's right for the government to get behind it because I think there is a lot of confusion you know there's a few scare mongers out there at the end of the day and and I think having you know a I think tanker body with in the government that's actually looking at this I think it's a very very smart decision of course I'd be delighted to be involved because I think we we there's aot You' got to be involved well I think there's a lot that we can add with our Real World Experience well as I said being aware and and again the Westminster um event was interesting and I know you're going to be launching a white paper which is a big survey about how business sees it and against yes what they perceive against the reality and that's going to be very interesting um but I think it's important to unpick this really is particularly now when you you see these advancements taking giant leavs so what you're going to do um uh from now on you're going on the road I know you're off to the United States you're going to actually talk to some people same type of conversation so you you get a chance to understand exactly what um AI could potentially do for you as a company and these are real and you will see and they're quite open about what they've saved how it's affected their businesses and they're not tiny companies we're talking about some of the world's biggest brands as you will see and then we're going to unpick the white paper you're going to do that you're going to go and talk to the MPS and the local Doncaster um chief executive who I think absolutely finds this one of the most exciting opportunities for the for the city and it is and at the bottom of this episode one podcast which has been only a first of of a few you're going to do you'll find some links so if you want to get in touch with Mark automated analytics um all the links will be on the bottom um keep watching because a lot of the the knowledge the white papers and some understanding and how it applies we you're going to do a whole education piece on I'm trying to get people to understand what it means um for them as a business or an individual so if you're interested that's what you can do absolutely I'm very excited about the series of podcasts that we're going to bring out so Ali thank you for doing the first one legendary you've done the first one bit of a ramble to begin with but I think you get the idea Mark's going to take over from now on and and um I think you will find it very interesting and certainly on the experiences that I've had trying to get to know the company and and what you can do it is extraordinary and actually gives me as an individual and as business as well comfort that there are people who are they get it and I think you'll you'll all see that over the next few weeks months mark thank you Andy thank you should we go have a cup of coffee yeah absolutely let's have a coffee thank you
Andy