Defined.ai to Play Significant Role in Accelerat.ai, the Government of Portugal-Approved AI Initiative

.20.10.2022

• The European Portuguese speaker assistant developed by Accelerat.ai was presented today at Web Summit.
• Accelerat.ai is the new consortium supported by the Recovery and Resilience Plan, which, with an investment of €34.5 million, aims to accelerate digital transformation in Portugal.
• This technology will fill a gap in the market, which is the creation of virtual assistants in European Portuguese.
• This technology will reduce costs for Portugal’s public and private sectors by automating 80% of customer support resolutions.

LISBON – October 20th, 2022 –

Defined.ai (former DefinedCrowd), the leading provider of superior Artificial Intelligence (AI) data, tools, and services, presented today the new technology of the European Portuguese speaker assistant that is being built by Accelerat.ai. Daniela Braga, founder of Defined.ai, showcased a live demo of the world’s first virtual assistant that speaks European Portuguese.

“Alone, we go faster, but together we go further, resulting from committed and motivated teamwork. It is with enthusiasm that I thank the team that has accompanied me in this great project and present in Portugal, the first virtual assistant 100% in my native language,” says Daniela Braga.

Accelerat.ai was announced last month by Defined.ai and is a new consortium approved by the Portuguese Government through the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP). This new consortium represents an investment of 34.5 million euros that is intended to accelerate the digital transformation of the public and private sectors in Portugal.

Accelerat.ai is set to develop a unique technology that translates into the creation of virtual assistants paired with contact centers as a service in European Portuguese, the Portugal native language. Simultaneously, it will develop European Portuguese language AI programs, something that, to date, has not been effectively addressed in the field of Conversational AI, especially in the public sector and specific industry domains.

This new technology will improve and optimize customer support services for public and private services in the Portuguese and European markets while filling a gap in the market, which is the creation of virtual assistants in Portuguese. With these improvements, it is estimated that it will be possible to reduce the costs allocated by automating 80% of customer support resolutions.

According to Daniela Braga, Founder, and CEO of Defined.ai, “In practical terms, some of the applications will have voice and video avatars that will talk to people, making it

possible to order food by voice without taking your eyes off the soccer game or confirm receipt of the family check and transfer it to the savings account while driving, for example.”

The consortium comprises a group of companies from different industries, all working together towards the same goal: accelerate digital transformation in Portugal and Europe through artificial intelligence. Besides Defined.ai – which will lead the consortium – a group of companies that includes Devscope, NOS, Instituto Superior Técnico de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, FC.Id and INESC-Id are part of Accelerat.ai. Companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Axians, Talkdesk, and KPMG join as potential partners and/or advisors. On the list of the first interested clients are Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Novo Banco and Santander (in the banking sector), SPMS and SNS (in the Ministry of Health), AMA (Digital Transformation), Ministry of Social Security, EDP and Galp (in the electricity and gas sectors), and other companies as NOS, Worten and the insurer Fidelidade.

Daniela Braga explains: “The focus of the consortium will be on optimizing customer service in public and private sectors in Portugal, but it is expected that this type of technology will be easily expanded to other EU markets, as well as easily adapted to all kinds of industries and businesses that rely on or benefit from AI technologies.”

This is just the first step in what will be the path toward the development of technologically complex and innovative solutions. Thus, boosting the digital transition is a topic on the political agendas in Portugal and Europe.

About Defined.ai

Defined.ai was established with the goal of providing superior AI data, tools, and services to genuinely answer customers’ questions in launching cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence systems. By sourcing, collecting, annotating, and evaluating data ethically and without bias, we provide a variety of products and services to help accelerate your Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning projects, always taking into account your goals, needs, budgets, timelines, and business outcomes.

Defined.ai specializes in human-computer interaction for Speech & Natural Language Processing, computer vision, and computer translation, offering ready-to-use and customized data products, Crowd-as-a-Service, human evaluation services, and end-to-end solutions. Our products are supported by the Neevo platform, with over one million employees, in over 100 countries, speaking over 70 languages – all regularly vetted, certified, and segmented to meet your specific needs.

Defined.ai has offices in Seattle, USA, Lisbon and Porto, Portugal, and Tokyo, Japan, and has raised over $80 million in investment.