Data-labelling startups want to help improve corporate AI

CORPORATE BOARDS are besotted with artificial intelligence. Worldwide spending on AI is expected to rise from $38bn this year to $98bn by 2023, estimates IDC, a research firm. So far, though, only one in five companies aware of the technology's potential has incorporated machine learning into its core business. One reason for the slow uptake is the dearth of quality data to teach algorithms to perform useful tasks. The most common form of AI, called "supervised learning", requires feeding software stacks of pre-tagged examples of, say, cat pictures until it can tell a feline image apart by itself.