This week, Appen LTD, a global leader in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) data, reported a 6.9% increase in share value — the most in 11 weeks. Appen is of note to the localization industry primarily as a seller of training data that can be used in applications such as machine translation.
The Motley Fool reported last month that Appen has seen a steady increase in share prices since March. The news comes as a boon to the company’s shareholders, who saw a significant drop in prices in mid-February as countries began responding to COVID-19. In spite of this year’s challenges, the company is in the middle of a strong upswing.
Indeed, during one of the price peaks, the founder and the CEO of the company cashed in their shares for a combined $61 million. Since March, the price has increased 99% from its $17.14 low to a high of $34.17. Following a year of immense success in 2019, with a 47% increase in revenue to $536 million, Appen has proven its resiliency during the pandemic.
With over 1 million contractors in over 130 countries and 180 languages, the company studies human speech and interactions with each other and with AI to collect training data that teaches AI models and machine learning algorithms to (theoretically) make good decisions. Its worldwide crowd of contributors paired with its innovative data collection platform ensures premium localization of text, images, audio, video, and sensory content, which has built it a strong reputation in a variety of industries.
Appen claims to be the data industry’s “most advanced AI-assisted data annotation platform.” Working with tech companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Adobe, Appen sells data sets to assist with machine translation, proofing tools, automatic speech recognition, computer vision, semantic search, text-to-speech, virtual assistants and chatbots.
