By Phyllis Mak, Altitude Accelerator’s Communications Intern

The future is here — and it’s quickly becoming an essential part of modern Canadian businesses. Incorporating artificial intelligence (A.I.) into the workplace isn’t just a sci-fi dream anymore and Daisy Intelligence is amongst the first tech disruptors to emerge in the A.I. space with a business focus.

When Gary Saarenvirta, CEO of Daisy Intelligence Corporation, recognized the limitations of an analyst’s capability to analyze vast and constantly changing operational data, he imagined a world using artificial intelligence to go beyond human capacity in maximizing the value of decision-making.

“Daisy was created to assist businesses in making smarter operational decisions using math and science,” Gary explains. “I believe helping companies execute more effectively enriches society and will ultimately improve people’s lives in two ways. Firstly, A.I. can be used to take over the highly repetitive and quantitative decision-making tasks and therefore allow employees to focus on more enriching tasks which require qualitative and ambiguous thinking. Secondly, I believe helping companies become significantly more profitable will create more job stability, lower prices, increase wages and increase the investment in new businesses.”

As a focused A.I. based platform, Daisy analyzes 100% of the transaction log and other relevant data and simulates the outcomes of each potential alternative decision. Daisy provides actionable recommendations to specific questions such as what products the company should promote, when to do so, how much inventory is needed, and how fraud can be reduced. With no hardware or software integration, Daisy can become fully operational in as quickly as 30 days.

“Our platform becomes smarter over time,” says Gary. “It learns from the outcomes of each decision, provides recommendations that have never been done in the past, and remembers these actions to iteratively learn to optimize an operational process over the long term.”

Daisy’s patent pending Theory of Retail^™ and Theory of Risk^™ uniquely provides new approaches to optimize sales, transactions and/or profits.

“We created a set of mathematical laws that govern how operational decision-making has an impact on the top and bottom lines of businesses and takes into account the billions of patterns created by unique customer-company interactions.” explains Gary. “This is especially impactful in business segments where margins are thin, the volume of transactions are high and frequent, and the potential for fraud is increased such as the retail and insurance industries.”

For Canadian businesses, A.I. platforms like Daisy can provide guidance towards better decisions and resource allocation. Once Daisy has been incorporated into a business, Gary notes that clients have been quick to integrate its insights into their practices.

Daisy Intelligence was also nominated for NACO’s Most Promising Start-Up of the Year Award in October. “It’s always an honour to be recognized for work that we’re doing that we believe is ground-breaking and valuable to our clients,” says Gary. “We believe that Canada needs to be a leader with disruptive technologies in order to remain globally competitive.”

Gary also spoke at the MaRS Verge Event on November 15, where he explained some of the buzzwords floating around the business world in regards to big data and artificial intelligence. He also set about exposing some of the myths and misconceptions about A.I. perpetuated by Hollywood.

“All companies and industries need to be aware of the disruptive nature of A.I. applications,” Gary reveals. “If this isn’t a topic within your company now, it will be.”

During 2016, Daisy Intelligence closed a private round of financing, expanded into the United States and rebranded their company. “Next year, we’ll continue to scale our business to meet the needs of an even larger base of clients in Canada and the USA, double our staff, and bring on the next generation of our products to market,” reveals Gary.

Best of luck to Daisy Intelligence in their future endeavours! You can check out their website and stay updated with all the latest news here. Are you starting a business that requires expert advice? Become a Altitude Accelerator Client today and get access to professional advice and mentorship from industry experts for all your business startup needs!