VERSES AI Inc., a cognitive computing company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, has provided a corporate update, outlining significant advancements in its products and research initiatives, as well as plans for future commercial applications. The update has been received with interest as AI automation continues to shape business landscapes across various industries.
Gabriel René, the founder and CEO of VERSES, articulated the company's mission, stating, "Our mission is to unleash a new class of intelligent autonomous agents that are both more reliable and more efficient. Today, the research and product investments we've made are proving their worth—just as the diminishing returns of scaling data and compute, alongside the unreliability of traditional deep and reinforcement learning, are becoming widely recognized.” The company's flagship product, Genius, has progressed significantly, with plans to transition from beta testing to commercial rollout in 2025.
Genius employs a unique framework that combines active inference and learning capabilities. This approach is anticipated to bolster decision-making processes within enterprises, promising reduced errors and enhanced operational efficiency across various applications, from software tools to robotic systems. René emphasised that Genius is set to redefine the standards for intelligent systems, potentially becoming a disruptive force in the sector.
The latest version of Genius, released earlier this month, introduces improved reasoning capabilities, comprehensive model explainability, and enhanced support for users. According to Andy Tasker, CEO of Prodigii, "Being able to explicitly model the cause-effect relationships of complex systems and quantify uncertainty means we can generate something not possible with traditional ML tools - results that are reliable, explainable, and assurance ready." This iteration is currently available to selected beta partners and machine learning practitioners, with plans for greater user engagement in the forthcoming year.
Highlighting the company's research achievements, Hari Thiruvengada, the Chief Technology Officer of VERSES, reported promising results from the Atari 10K Challenge—a testing benchmark aimed at achieving human-level performance across various games using significantly reduced data and computational resources. "We believe this marks a historic shift for the AI industry at large," Thiruvengada noted. Preliminary findings indicated that VERSES's Bayesian models not only matched but occasionally outperformed leading reinforcement learning models developed by major industry players, employing 90% less data and requiring less computational power.
In an additional demonstration of Genius's capabilities, preliminary tests revealed that an agent powered by Genius consistently outpaced OpenAI's leading reasoning model, achieving a success rate of 100% compared to 71% for OpenAI's solution, while operating 140 times faster and at a fraction of the cost.
Furthermore, VERSES has embarked on several commercial projects, including a smart city initiative in partnership with Analog, focused on optimizing taxi fleet management in Abu Dhabi. James Hendrickson, COO of VERSES, expressed optimism regarding the transition of beta users into commercial clients, stating, "We are pleased that a majority of Genius beta users are expected to convert to commercial engagements in 2025." The company anticipates signing additional contracts in various market segments in early 2025.
As part of its strategic growth, VERSES has fortified its workforce and operational processes, extending the contract of Chief Scientist Professor Karl Friston. The firm also showcased its research contributions at the recent 38th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2024) in Vancouver, where several of its papers were accepted for presentation.
In conclusion, VERSES AI's advancements in AI automation technologies and intelligent systems are gathering momentum, demonstrating noteworthy research achievements and promising commercial applications. As businesses continue to explore AI's potential, the developments from companies like VERSES may play a pivotal role in shaping efficiencies and capabilities in the future.
Source: Noah Wire Services