Interview with Filippo Furini, CEO of Doyle, the innovative startup that enhances the creativity and ability of companies, applying Artificial Intelligence solutions shaped by the judgment of people.
Today more than ever, after the advent of the pandemic that has accelerated the way of interacting, the same communication has moved on web channels and social networks. The way to interact with customers began with new online shopping habits, especially through the e-commerce channels. The companies were not ready to monitor the “online conversations of the crowd” and in some cases they saw lost revenues due to “negative expressions”. For this reason, a new need occurred to which Doyle tries to answer by using innovative tools such as artificial intelligence that are able to empower companies. “Listening” to the online communication on the web and on social networks, the company manages to verify if the actions it is practicing on any relevant issue, have a positive impact on its stakeholders. In this way, companies can better allocate financial resources in the right direction, obtaining a reputational and consequently economic benefit. If you’re thinking about new AI solutions for your company, it’s time to discover Doyle!
What is Doyle
Doyle is an innovative tool that “listens” to what the crowd says (CROWDCHECKING) on the net and on social networks. Using Artificial Intelligence tools, it performs targeted research on topics relevant to the company’s survey topics. The initial definition of key concepts takes place through a profiling process whereby Doyle leads the company in the analysis of all the information to be tracked online.
Algorithms developed ad hoc, then automatically attribute a negative or positive score to each “record” analyzed based on the semantic content of the text, returning an overall average value for the online reputation. Once consolidated the terms and modalities for the search and the monitoring, Doyle offers a tool that can be used independently by companies, from any device.
It does not require the installation of any software and application. The consultants and staff guarantee assistance to help on-boarding and continuous support. It is not necessary for the company to have any previous experience in using these tools, Doyle guides its step by step. Use complex data analytics to suggest important topics for business, benchmarking, and industry best practices.
To learn more, we interviewed Filippo Furini, co-founder and CEO of Doyle.
Hi Filippo, it’s a pleasure to meet you and thank you for your time. Tell us more about Doyle. How and when did Doyle’s idea come from?
Good morning, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you the experience of Doyle. At the “outbreak” of the pandemic period, where we were all forced to remain closed in our house, communication between people has shifted to web channels and social networks.
Doyle is the result of an intuition I had during that tragic time for everyone. Working closely with companies, I found that there was a lack of efficient tools for monitoring online communication. To listen to what happens on the web and on social media it is needed a team of people that set up searches and analyze texts for 24h! At that point I wondered if some innovative tool could facilitate this activity. Sharing this idea with a friend, we studied a solution based on Artificial Intelligence that can answer to this need.
How did you launch your company? Did you use crowdfunding campaigns?
Doyle was born as a project about listening to online interactions. Before launching our start up, we did a market research that gave us a very good response. The idea was endorsed by the recognition received at the Italian Insurtech Awards in September 2020, as the best intelligence project of the year. This is where we started! In order to have control of the development in house, we developed the project with professionals operating in the digital sector who deal with development, programming and business intelligence. In this way we formed a team with all the skills and invested personal capital to launch Doyle.
What innovative services does Doyle offer to its customers?
Almost two years after its launch, thanks to DOYLE Lab, where we share and merge experiences, we are able to provide companies with different innovative services: communication and marketing with market analysis, Business Intelligence and management control, social media management, analytics, chatbots, websites, apps and software, reputational index and everything related to the sustainability practices that we want to push more. The most innovative service, in fact, is the application of our services for corporate sustainability: Crowdchecking for Sustainability (CDC4S). The process to achieve this result consists in identifying the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) themes that are more material than the supply chain of each individual company, in order to obtain customized sustainability profiles on which we carry out the company’s sustainability assessment. Starting from more than 400 ESG indicators, a selection is made based on criteria of relevance for the supply chain. Next, the technology consists of configurable search algorithms that “listen to the crowd”, a neural network for the semantic analysis of the identified themes and Business Intelligence tools that can aggregate a large amount of data, allow to obtain the final result: the score of the corporate sustainability expressed by its online stakeholders. This result is also compared with the sustainability scores of the main competitors. The final part of this process is displayed on customizes dashboards that are then delivered to the company along with a detailed report.
The customer can also request in-depth reports, do you want to explain what they are?
Certainly! The Reports that we provide to customers are the result of a targeted online search on a particular topic. Once the theme is identified, KPIs are created with the support of our consultants specialized in that specific field. Next, KPI profiling is “fed” to our algorithms that take care of collecting the result and transferring it to detailed dashboard. Hence the analysis of all the contents is obtained thanks to the specific research methodology and suggestions of possible interventions. The topic that is currently being asked for the most is Sustainability. Companies are “eager” to know if the activities they are exercising on this issue, along with financial resources, are perceived positively by the crowd.
What are your plans for the future?
Technology has shown us a new path to resilience and innovation. The use of Artificial Intelligence will allow companies to increase the connection with their stakeholders in a more agile and strategic way. Our task is to make these technologies increasingly “human”.
We will continue to develop other services tailored to companies in different sectors and after the creation of the Observatory on Sustainability presented in 2021, we want to continue to create Benchmark and Thematic Observatories.
We are also working on a very ambitious project that combines the word innovation with sustainability. This will allow a turning point for sustainability reporting.
Curiosity: Any curiosity about the final choice of name?
Given the peculiarity of the activity, I imagined the service as a sort of virtual investigator, and so while reading a book by Sherlock Holmes during the lockdown, I thought of giving to the project the name of the most famous of the investigators: Doyle (Arthur Conan Doyle).
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