Firm builds artificial intelligence toolkits for companies to use

The team: Dutt, who has a background in theoretical physics and has done software-development work at Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Intel, oversees an 11-person team that includes software developers, mathematicians, data-science experts and a psychologist. "What's nice about the Seattle area is there's a growing job force, and talent in educated people who are skilled at doing these kinds of things," Dutt said. Not quite robots: Artificial intelligence is a pretty broad term (and often misused, industry insiders say). When Dimensional execs say A.I., they don't mean a fully conversant robot that can also fold your laundry. Instead, they're building a software platform that provides off-the-shelf pattern recognition and analysis tools.