Putting AI To Work With RapidCanvas

For Rahul Pangam, CEO of RapidCanvas, the journey to the substitute intelligence (AI) platform he co-founded in 2023, started greater than 15 years in the past. “I used to be working at Google, and I used to be requested to help the rising variety of fraud consultants it was hiring as a result of they didn’t know code,” he recollects. “I needed to discover a method for them to place their experience to work with out having to coach as software program engineers.”

Texas-based RapidCanvas, which is immediately saying the profitable completion of a $7.5 million funding spherical, is Pangam’s newest effort to rise to that problem. “What I realised in that function at Google is that the folks in a enterprise who know do the technical duties usually are not essentially the individuals who perceive the enterprise drawback that truly wants fixing,” he says. “We have to empower these drawback solvers to take the lead.”

RapidCanvas’s worth proposition relies on that proposition. AI and machine studying (ML) applied sciences provide big alternatives for companies to function extra successfully and effectively – and to take action throughout a number of features. The RapidCanvas platform due to this fact goals to assist folks all through the enterprise to place such expertise to work of their particular areas of accountability, even when they know nothing in any respect about construct and use AI and ML instruments.

Pangam co-founded the enterprise with Uttam Phalnikar, with whom he beforehand launched Simility an ML-based danger administration platform that was ultimately acquired by PayPal. The duo noticed a possibility to construct on their earlier expertise amid the emergence of huge language fashions (LLMs) and generative AI (GenAI).

Certainly, Pangam argues that GenAI is the plain reply to the age-old drawback of enterprise consultants not realizing construct technical options. “When you ask it the proper questions, GenAI will generate the code you want for a given drawback,” he factors out. “That’s transformational for folks like me who’ve been fascinated about this mismatch for the previous 15 years.”

Based mostly on such developments, RapidCanvas’s platform presents companies a three-stage course of to constructing AI fashions for his or her most pressing issues – and is aimed toward enterprise customers who could haven’t any technical information of AI and ML in any respect.

The primary stage, leveraging GenAI, is for the consumer to inform the platform what information they at present have and what drawback they’re in search of to resolve. It is going to then make strategies for what further information could be required, in addition to figuring out any issues with the present information.

Subsequent, as soon as the dataset is finalised, the platform makes use of an autonomous AI-building expertise to assemble the mannequin – Pangam says RapidCanvas can do that work in a couple of minutes, the place even an expert information scientist would possibly take a number of weeks. The mannequin can then be examined and iterated over and once more to enhance it.

Lastly, the platform offers a read-out of how the mannequin arrives at its conclusions. “It offers you the element of what lies behind its scores and predictions,” explains Pangam. “That’s essential as a result of CEOs will naturally be sceptical – they want to have the ability to perceive why the mannequin is telling them what it’s.”

In idea, this course of could possibly be utilized to nearly any enterprise drawback, however RapidCanvas has centered on round 50 frequent points the place AI is commonly seen as most probably worthwhile. It has developed libraries of options that customers can undertake, break up into enterprise issues spanning danger administration, advertising and marketing, logistics and manufacturing, predictive upkeep, and gross sales.

To date, the corporate has attracted round 25 prospects from a variety of various industries. One early adopter, automotive components manufacture MTE-THOMSON, cites the function performed by the platform in vital enterprise features.

“Our imaginative and prescient was to combine AI into our demand prediction and stock administration processes,” explains Arthur Strommer, a vp at MTE-THOMSON. “We have seen a 35% enchancment in operational efficiency and a 50% discount in time spent on guide changes, eliminating operational bottlenecks and streamlining our processes.”

That type of testimonial has impressed potential buyers within the enterprise, with immediately’s $7.5 million spherical led by Accel, with participation from Valley Capital Companions.

“Whereas the potential of AI has change into more and more apparent to enterprises around the globe, their skill to include AI options into their operations is restricted by time, expertise, and cash,” says Dinesh Katiyar, a associate at Accel. “RapidCanvas has created a singular resolution to this drawback, offering enterprise customers with a co-pilot that allows them to construct AI options specific to their wants, rapidly and economically.”

The seed funding is earmarked for funding in additional product growth, in addition to within the gross sales and advertising and marketing operate. For Pangam, nonetheless, this already seems like coming full circle from his days at Google. “So many individuals are excited by the potential of AI however not sure exploit it,” he says. “It’s actually rewarding to have the ability to empower them.”