Press Release: Squark Launches Codeless AI that Transforms How Business Analysts Deliver Accurate Predictions

Squark Launches Codeless AIWith AI-powered analytics now as easy as a spreadsheet, Squark Seer equips any organization to make decisions based on probabilities instead of guesses

Burlington, MA – Feb. 28, 2019 – Squark, a software as a service (SaaS) predictive analytics provider, today announced Squark™ Seer, a tool that enables non-programmers to take advantage of the power of artificial intelligence to make timely and actionable predictions. This important advance brings AI out of the development lab and directly into the hands of marketers, managers, and operations analysts.

Accurate predictions allow organizations to shape their futures actively instead of just reacting to what has already happened. For instance, identifying which mobile customers are at risk to switch carriers can enable telecom companies to reach them in time with effective retention programs. That is why AI is in high demand—because it replaces reports with predictions. But adoption of AI has been slowed by shortages of data scientists and expert programmers customarily required to make it work. Squark removes this obstacle by eliminating AI programming completely—delivering results in minutes.

Weary of complexities and delays in their own development projects, industry veterans Dan Hess and Judah Phillips co-founded Squark in 2016 with a mission to build a way for business analysts to create predictions quickly, by themselves. They envisioned using the self-programming power of AI to build models automatically, so that data science knowledge was not required. The system would be built in the cloud with architecture that makes the latest AI algorithms instantly available to users. Their concept was fulfilled with the release of Squark Seer—making predictions with AI is now as straightforward as using a spreadsheet.

“Our goal was to make AI a point-and-click experience. Seer requires only upload of training and production data sets to the SaaS application. AI then does the hard work of creating hundreds or thousands of models using competing algorithms. The best method is then used to make the predictions,” said Hess, Squark’s CEO. “The whole process takes minutes, not months,” he added.

“Leading a robust B2B SaaS demand generation practice, I needed the ability to respond proactively and quickly to changes in demand from prospects at every stage in the sales funnel,” said Brett House, VP of Product Marketing and Demand Generation at Nielsen. “Squark helped my team predict the key drivers of marketing ROI more effectively, which for us means sales-accepted leads and closed deals. This translates to more efficient use of our marketing dollars, better use of my team’s time, and the ability to optimize our programs actively across a variety of dimensions.”

Adam Jenkins, Principal at Digital IQ, said that, “As an agency for high-profile consumer brands, we need to deliver meaningful predictions—ones that increase sales. In our very first project we used Squark to show a beverage client where to aim cross-sell offers. Immediate uplift overnight in the double digits. Remarkable. With no programmers.”

Phillips, CTO at Squark, explained that the company currently concentrates on predictions made with AI techniques that use sets of known outcomes to train predictive algorithms. “We focus on practical business predictions such as marketing, operations, and sales. For example: Which leads are most likely to convert to the next stage in the customer journey? We have binary classifications to do that. Which inventory stocking location is likely to be closest to customers to reduce shipping cost? Squark has multi-class algorithms for that. What is the real forecast for the next period in units and dollars based on today’s actual pipeline? Our regression predictions handle that. And Squark Seer implementation could hardly be simpler: Log in, upload, predict.”

Squark is already at work for customers in a wide range of businesses including marketing services, digital agencies, logistics, healthcare, cloud services, building materials, fundraising, and insurance.