No More AI Mumbo-Jumbo: AI Success with Squark

Squark wasn’t started because we foresaw a lack of data scientists. It was clear with high salaries in data science and the rapid cross-industry fascination with the idea of data science, people would learn how to do it. Instead, we started Squark because in our past jobs we were challenged with prediction. It was too expensive with an insufficiency of qualified resources. The data wasn’t available or was too hard to get. It took too long. The list goes on and on. We wanted to solve the prediction problem by simply creating a fast and accurate way for business people to get high-quality predictions. Very quickly. With no coding. In a few clicks.

Our experience had taught us supervised machine learning was part of the solution – and mating it with a conversion-oriented interface that abstracted away data science complexity would get us there. So we created Squark. It’s not meant to be a video game. It’s more of an Amazon-like shopping cart where you get predictions at the end. Squark’s certainly not meant to be a robot to replace anybody either. Sure, you can embed Squark in business automations via our API or managed service, but it’s meant for business people to upload their historic data and get fast and accurate predictions – without all the problems – so business decisions can be made with machine intelligence.

By converting your data into predictive actions, we are augmenting business decision processes with mathematically valid insights derived from deep analysis – specific to the exact goals you want to predict or forecast. Put simply, Squark learns from your past data, to predict the outcomes of what will happen in the future.

When we started Squark, we used to say “there is no industry category for what we do.” No one was making enterprise-level software for business analysts and managers that puts machine learning power in the hands of the mid-market and corporate buyers too. Today Squark is covered by analysts, like Forrester, and investment banks as “AutoML” or an “ML/DS Platform.” Squark is AI predictive power with spreadsheet ease. The Lotus 1- 2- 3 of AI. The Excel of AI.

In a world where everyone talks about AI, it’s largely aspirational for most companies with under $1B in revenue. Regardless of size, according to IBM only 13% of models actually reach production. Squark changes that. And through the looking glass of experience that lead to the innovation that is Squark, we want to share some AI truth as we see it:

1. You do not always need data scientists. Squark empowers business people to put prediction at the center of the business without delay, unlike pretty much every other “AutoML” solution out there. Squark isn’t out to replace data scientists. We couldn’t do that. No one can. In fact we have data scientists using our platform. Right now. Meanwhile, >80% of data scientists have less than 3 years of experience and don’t know your business. You and your analysts do.
2. You not need “big data.” Our algorithms support big and small data. In addition, we have specialized features that help us deal with the nuances of your data in order to build the best model. Size does not matter. The width of your data (the # of columns does not matter). Squark empowered GPUs are more than sufficient for your marketing and sales data – wherever it resides.
3. You have the data. The data in your common business systems is more than sufficient. From your internal databases, warehouses, and lakes to your cloud data and SaaS systems, Squark can ingest that data and tell you what is going to happen for your key use cases. In fact, we actually do a special type of AI-specific data preparation – feature engineering – and more with Squark proprietary power.
4. One system can analyze both structured and unstructured data. That is called Squark. We can learn what’s critical to your natural language content and use that as predictors for your target. We consider text content alongside numbers, categories, dates, and more to predict your marketing and sales outcomes with validated accuracy.
5. You do not need to spend a lot of money. Competitors charge high 6-figures and frequently more than 7-figures, for the power of Squark. We price our software in a way that ensures you enjoy the ROI as you turn your data to dollars.
6. It does not take a long time. Squark will attain production-ready results literally in minutes that you can action in your human decisions or send for machine automation. Try us out to see for
   yourself. Use one dataset to predict as many outcomes as you want – and then reuse the data and models over and over again.
7. Uses cases are right in front of you. While Squark has a nimble and flexible approach to fit almost every business use case, everybody sells. Sales and marketing applications are the easiest to justify because there is no mystery about measuring ROI. Many of our customers use Squark to analyze their customer and sales data. What contacts will become leads? What leads will become MQLs, MQO’s, SQLs, SQO’s? How much ACV? What’s the sales forecast? What offers do we send? What media works? What’s my multichannel attribution? Squark does all this and more.
8. You don’t need perfect accuracy. Do you prefer a 95% accurate model with a 10% ROI, or 85% accurate model with 70% ROI? Spending weeks and months and years seeking that high accuracy and low error costs money. In a world where 50% of marketing and sales spend is misallocated, and decisions need to be made today, simply beating blackjack odds hits the jackpot. Squark gives you PhD level machine learning predictions that would get you bounced from any casino. The power of deep AI is in your hands with Squark to help you make better decisions.
9. Your team can right now can’t do it. Yes, they can. If they can use Excel, they can use Squark. The results are easy to understand by anyone with data dexterity who has worked with data before can get results and do it quickly. Even if your team has never heard about machine learning classification, regression, and forecasting can use Squark’s codeless AI system. Even if you have never heard of automated machine learning and automated time series, we teach you
   the way and put you on the golden path.
10. AI is not hard to operationalize. Use Squark as a SaaS. Use Squark’s API to wire us into your business. Want to deploy Squark on a private cloud on your bare metal that you manage? We can do it. Export the models as code and integrate. No problem.
11. AI is not a black box. We provide an assessment of the variables (features) in your data most predictive to your goal and other model information to inform and elucidate some of the why behind what will happen in your predictive future.

Squark is the real deal. We’ve been building out Squark for years with contributions from many of the world’s leading academics and industry experts helping us achieve our goal along the way to our production launch in 2019. Given the years we’ve spent building Squark, the late nights, and lessons learned. We know we’ve reached our goal. So now we’ve set a new goal to tell you about it.

You are smart enough to have found us. Take the next step by learning more. In the worst case, you will get even smarter. In the best case, we generate you huge ROI. Do it now. Before your competitors do.

Squark is codeless AI predictive power with spreadsheet ease. Helping you and your team to put AI- based predictions into your human decisions and business automations.

Get in touch to see a demo, try out one free prediction (limited to 10,000 rows), or read out success stories.