Imagine an AI-powered SaaS solution that scans public social media chatter and web sources to detect and issue real time emergency alerts on a global scale. Not only can Tina Tuli picture this, but as CMO of SamDesk, an Edmonton-based tech startup, she’s driving the marketing strategy to help make it happen.
In a recent interview with ITWC President Fawn Annan, conducted as part of the CMO Talks podcast series, Tuli described SamDesk as a real time, global disruptive detection and monitoring tool with enterprise customers in the UK, the US and Canada. The company’s mission, she said, is to help their clients get ahead of critical events when every second counts.
What does SamDesk really do?
The short answer is that it provides what Tuli describes as “blazing fast alerts”. The longer explanation is that it uses AI and machine learning to sift through a unified global feed of crises, triangulate location data, identify corroborating messaging, and alert clients to critical incidents an average of 35 minutes before these events hit the news.
Not only is SamDesk the eyes and ears of clients who need to be in the know, but it also speaks their language, as long as it’s one of the 19 and counting in the complex AI agent’s repertoire. By tapping into both big data and applied AI, SamDesk provides clients with confidence in making decisions that could save lives and avert disasters.
The Real Time Advantage
Tuli is committed to creating, capturing and retaining demand for SamDesk. A background in sales and deep marketing has prepared her to focus on the sales cycle and ensure the team has the tools and resources they need to succeed. “Marketing provides a solid messaging platform, which articulates the value proposition and reinforces the why behind the what,” she said.
As a way of describing the need for timely crisis alerts and their critical importance to decision making, Tuli shared an example from the devastating explosion that occurred in Lebanon on August 4th, 2020. “Local news reported the incident 10 minutes later, regional news broke the story 48 minutes later, and international news started to cover the story an hour and 12 minutes after the blast,” she reported. “When a crisis occurs, every second matters. The more time that elapses, the less likely the chances of an effective response.”
By scanning the entire digital landscape, which includes 5 billion mobile users and 3.6 billion public and social media users, SamDesk was able to alert clients only two minutes after the actual explosion, a lead time that was 46 minutes ahead of regional news and over hour ahead of international media. According to Tuli, this gave SamDesk clients the advantage of time and allowed them to react faster and more effectively.
Meeting a Need
In response to a question from Fawn Annan about areas being considered as potential SamDesk markets, Tuli chronicled the way SamDesk’s market segment has broadened from providing support to newsrooms to serving other industries and verticals that benefit from detecting crisis events in real time. As a real time information engine that can inform various industries and use cases, the company empowers clients all over the world from hubs in Canada and the UK.
SamDesk has come a long way in only a few years and is rapidly moving ahead. In a time of COVID-19, terrorist attacks, fires, floods, and destructive weather patterns, information is more critical than ever. And by holding the key to real time decision making, SamDesk, is poised to break important new ground in the information economy.