The Techstars Montreal AI Accelerator is one of the first business accelerator specially designed for the field of artificial intelligence in Montreal, which aims to create a bridge between the attraction of talent from all over the world and the influence of experts. local internationally.
As a digital marketing professional very involved in new technologies and market evolution, I chose to get involved in this initiative as a mentor. During the Demo Day, on Wednesday, December 5, I was able to update entrepreneurs on their progress and the opportunities offered by the future.
ENRICH RATHER THAN REINVENT
A trend that we notice in AI start-ups is that of integration. Indeed, these companies generally try to complement services or functionalities that already exist on the market. From a business perspective, what is really interesting is that we are witnessing a profound paradigm shift that is giving way to a philosophy of collaboration rather than competition. Because artificial intelligence aims to complement existing markets, and this approach is very inspiring.
THE LAW BEHIND INNOVATION
For companies, the legal context is often one of the most important triggers for innovation. These legal constraints force managers to review their business models and their execution processes even more than an innovation department because they are inevitable. European data protection law is the perfect example, as my colleague Marie Nicollet explained in her article on the subject .
START-UPS TO DISCOVER
Several of these young companies are extremely promising, and I have chosen to present to you a few that particularly caught my attention.
CRESCENDO
This entrepreneurial project offers a tool that integrates with software or platforms, such as Slack , offered to companies to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace. The particularity of their offer is based on the aggregation of internal and external data which makes it possible to propose a personalized human relations plan based on the perceptions and level of knowledge of the employees. This training plan is then supplemented with external content (videos, articles, etc.) which relies on a continuous training approach that is integrated into the daily lives of professionals.
The big idea behind this innovation is based on an existing problem, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, which does not yet have an obvious solution. However, the main challenge for this start-up is one of notoriety, clarity of the offer and added value, because companies often already pay for an existing service which is intended to be complete in itself.
For today's companies, a start-up like Crescendo will disrupt the way things are done by getting them to take better feedback from their employees in a constant and anonymous way in order to ensure and address more delicate subjects, which becomes difficult. critically important in the age of #MeToo and other organizational scandals.
GREEN-EYE TECHNOLOGY
The mission of this start-up is unequivocal: to limit the use of herbicides in the agricultural industry. The technology developed consists of a photo recognition system that enables intelligent localized spraying of production-critical herbicides. This photo recognition system is translated into Cartesian data which is programmed directly into the machinery, allowing automation based on photo recognition and machine learning.
The legal context specific to the agricultural sector and the use of chemical products, in line with the trend of eco-responsibility, has greatly encouraged entrepreneurs to look into an artificial intelligence solution.
In short, Green-eye Technology is changing its industry by getting agriculture companies to be smarter through their use of chemicals, without hurting their bottom line.
ALEXEI
The entrepreneurs behind this start-up have developed a legal search engine. But forget the results you might find from Google, we are talking here about a tool that allows you to unearth specific articles of law and concrete solutions for complex legal questions. It's all made possible through machine learning made from real legal cases solved by humans.
A start-up like Alexsei, facilitating access to information could allow greater autonomy for civilians, but, in the longer term, will make the profession of lawyer evolve towards a role of reflection and advice more than knowledge. . This change could result in fewer hours needed to prepare files, and could thus eventually increase accessibility to legal professional services.
DATA IS THE NEW GOLD
Data is the cornerstone of resources for AI entrepreneurs, because without it, machine learning simply wouldn't be possible. This shortcoming even represents a problem for many start-ups, which develop brilliant models and hypotheses, but do not have access to a sufficient amount of data to train intelligent automation.
And you, what trends interest you the most in artificial intelligence? What changes do you think should be anticipated?
