Absolutdata launches an AI-based decision-making platform

Analytics firm Absolutdata is evolving from a provider of predictive and evaluative marketing tools to a platform for decision-making.

In early 2015, the company released NAVIK Converter, a tool to pinpoint which users of trial subscriptions are most likely to buy — and what kind of offers might lead them there.

In mid-2015, it launched the NAVIK Concept Test, a tool to speed up the process of evaluating product ideas. Last year, it unveiled its first tool with embedded AI, NAVIK SalesAI, for helping salespeople determine the most promising prospects and the best ways to reach them.

This week, the San Francisco-based firm is adding an artificial intelligence layer to its first two tools. NAVIK Converter is now NAVIK MarketingAI, NAVIK Concept Test is now NAVIK ConceptAI, and those products are combined with SalesAI to create the NAVIK AI Platform.

In addition to the three products, the platform includes an AI Design Lab with a machine learning library, a self-learning model builder and a text-mining lab. There’s also a Decision Engine with a prediction simulator, a decision option generator and a recommender bot.

Founder CEO Anil Kaul told me that, while his company previously employed machine learning to support predictive analytics, the newest incarnation uses neural nets and deep learning to process more kinds of data — including unstructured data — and to generate more finely tuned decision options.

He noted that MarketingAI was tested by an unnamed global hotel brand to bring back guests who only stayed once at the chain.

The hotel created a dozen different offers. One group of these “once and done” customers were randomly sent offers, while MarketingAI targeted specific offers at specific customers in the other group. Here’s a screen shot from the latter group:

Kaul said the campaigns using MarketingAI saw a 51 percent increase in revenue from opened emails and 31 percent more customer bookings.

The additional AI capability, he said, “enhances the ability to find more patterns from more sources of data,” like discovering insights related to when those customers checked in, when they made reservations and other droplets of data.

ConceptAI can similarly digest more data than it could previously, he said, and it offers more decision options. Previously, with NAVIK Concept Test, the results indicated which product ideas people liked best. Now, Kaul said, results can also give decision options about product ideas, based around specific goals.

He added that development is in progress to adapt the new platform for other kinds of decision-making.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.