iMerit’s Approach to AI Data

iMerit, a California- and India-based startup, has been building itself into a trusted data annotation partner for companies working in computer vision, medical imaging, autonomous mobility, and other AI applications. The company believes that the next step towards integrating AI tools at the enterprise level is not more data, but better data.

According to Radha Basu, CEO and founder of iMerit, what’s become exceedingly important is the ability to attract and retain the best cognitive experts. The company’s Scholars program, which is now out of beta, aims to build a growing workforce of experts to fine-tune generative AI models for enterprise applications.

iMerit’s experts are tasked with finetuning, or “tormenting,” enterprise and foundational AI models using the startup’s proprietary platform Ango Hub. The company boasts a 91% retention rate, with 50% of its experts being women.

Focus on Expert-Led AI

iMerit is betting that now is the right moment to double down on expert-led, high-quality data, the kind that requires deep human judgment and domain-specific oversight. The company’s VP of global specialist workforce, Rob Laing, noted that a lot of money is being spent on AI right now, but the output from the mass approach and quick speed to market approach is not at the level of quality that enterprises need.

Basu brought up the example of healthcare scribes that have come to market off the back of foundational large language models. She emphasized that without the expertise of cardiologists or physicians, the accuracy of these models is limited. iMerit’s experts are working to create models that are 99% accurate, by questioning, breaking, and fixing them.