Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders, plus other local technology happenings. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.
Though based in Finland, HeadAI, an artificial intelligence startup founded in 2015, also has had a commercial base in Arlington since 2017.
“Arlington is a vibrant area. There are new, innovative hubs in the U.S. and Arlington is one of those areas,” said Anu Passi-Rauste, the startup’s head of U.S. business development.
One of the key taglines on HeadAI’s website is to “create artificial labor.” This artificial labor is made possible through teachable software robots that can do everyday knowledge-based jobs. One bot can act as personal assistant learning about a subject of the owner’s choosing while another may use a bot for insights into data.
HeadAI offers multiple services whether through apps or consulting for businesses on the best way to use AI for their companies.
With any new technology, there are questions of about the future — for instance, will AI replace everyday jobs and tasks?
Passi-Rauste said AI will only create new jobs. In fact, she added that AI has only brought on new and better jobs that have helped HeadAI’s customer create more profit.
“Even when we had the hammer, it changed how we do the work, but it always also brought new work and new jobs,” Passi-Rauste said. “AI is actually not killing jobs.”
Besides consulting, HeadAI has two free apps, NewsAI and ExamineAI. NewsAI is a bot that collects news catered to subjects of the user’s interests, while ExamineAI is an AI training course on economics.
Then there’s another service HeadAI offers called Microcompetencies, which uses artificial intelligence to visualize data with maps regarding the supply and demand of job skills within a city, company or region.
“We are creating data and extracting that information needed to create these visualizations how to construct skills, what are the job skills that are high in demand in that area, in the region in the city or in the company level,” Passi-Rauste sa
Within five years, HeadAI wants to automate one billion tasks across multiple industries. But for now, Passi-Rauste just wants to see its services become a scalable model that anyone can use in the U.S.