Is this Cambridge company developing true AI?

Prowler.io CEO Vishal Chatrath and I are talking about artificial intelligence in a room called Maria. The meeting room, which forms part of Prowler's bright and buzzing Hills Road offices, doesn't have consciousness as far as I'm aware, but is named in honour of one of the main characters in Metropolis, a 1927 film which depicts an early vision of the rise of the machines. In it, Maria sees her likeness transferred to a robot, which leads an uprising to destroy the titular Metropolis. It's one of several nods to sci-fi at Prowler HQ – the firm's boardroom is called Skynet – but the company, which is being tipped by many as the Next Big Thing to emerge from the Cambridge cluster, has its sights set firmly on using AI to solve real-world problems. Vishal explains that these problems could be, well, just about anything.