A UK AI company that builds tools to help platforms and brands spot harmful video, image and text content at scale.
Unitary builds artificial intelligence that helps websites, apps and brands understand the content their users upload. Its AI moderation agents look at images, video and text together, in context, and flag harmful material such as bad language, animal abuse, drugs and weapons. Customers can set their own moderation rules, and the company says the tools are updated as new regulations appear. A 2023 TechCrunch article says Unitary's models read text, sound and visuals together rather than only a series of frames, with chief executive Sasha Haco saying the aim is to "simulate the way a human moderator watches the video". It said the tools are usually used alongside a human review team and classified about 6 million videos a day, with more languages being added beyond English.
Its mission, in its own words, is to make the internet safer by helping brands and platforms understand their content "accurately, swiftly and at scale". The company says its founders saw, while researching content moderation, that platforms lacked the tools to keep users safe and build thriving communities.
The co-founders met through Entrepreneur First, which helps people find co-founders. Sasha Haco, chief executive, did a PhD at Cambridge working with Stephen Hawking and was a visiting fellow at Harvard. James Thewlis, chief technology officer, saw content moderation first-hand at Facebook and Reddit and has a PhD in computer vision from Oxford. Its About page lists a UK team alongside EU and US groups, and TechCrunch describes it as a Cambridge, England start-up, though the About page gave no street address.
The company lists four values: fiercely passionate, endlessly curious, unbeatable as a team, and united through diversity, saying a more diverse team is a stronger one. These are its own claims. It also says it works with leading universities and hires engineers to develop new solutions, which points to research-heavy teams. Roles in a company like this include machine learning researchers and engineers, product managers, trust and safety specialists, and customer-facing staff.
Unitary is a good example for students interested in computer science, maths or online safety. We did not find an address or headcount, so check unitary.ai for how the UK team is described and where it works.
Website: unitary.ai
PURPOSE helps school and university students explore 62 sectors and over 1,000 entry-level careers in the UK, then connects them directly with employers.
Explore PURPOSE