We are building PinTale: a unique content structuring platform with dynamic writing support tools. PinTale offers AI-based productivity support without generating any text on the writer's behalf, avoiding challenges around ethics, and copyright that plague generative AI tools.
For authors to achieve publication, a writer generally sends an extract and a summary of the work to a literary agent, acquisition agent or publisher in response to pre-defined query request guidance. These agents receive thousands of submissions each year and are more inundated than ever, unable to give potential and selected titles the attention they deserve. For authors, this creates two key barriers, getting a literary agent and getting accepted for publication. Within the book publishing industry, an author has between a 1% and 2% chance of getting their work published, while acceptance rates by major agencies are even lower, closer to 1-in-1000\.
This project will conduct a feasibility study exploring how Pintale's technology and approach can help overcome this bottleneck within the creative writing sector:
For editors: We will investigate requirements for building a bespoke Pintale Publisher, building upon our core Pintale Editor engine, to utilise our capability to parse submission data for fit and create rapid assessment tools, e.g., triage tools, scoring to fit genres/niches, summary text assessment, etc.
For writers: We will explore developing structural support functionality to ensure writer submissions overcome the barriers above using their existing work, providing solutions to: meeting submission requirements, accurately expressing book content and selecting ideal extracts, etc.
Flock Mobility has built a new and highly innovative 'multipurpose EV Fleet solution' to meet the growing demand for sustainable and cost-effective EV fleet solutions within organisations.
Following an initial deployment within the NHS environment, Flock has identified a new requirement for an intelligent range optimisation tool which better manages the charging needs of fleet vehicles, thereby aligning the fleet's operational capabilities with daily demands and allowing the NHS to scale their electric fleets to meet net zero targets.
The aim of this proposal is to create and test an early-stage prototype to determine the feasibility of this technology within the NHS context.
Whether it's fiction, academia, journalism, or any other type of longform content, writing is a complex and arduous task requiring significant planning, preparation and note keeping. This is one of the key reasons why \>80% of people want to write a book, but only 3% who start ever finish.
Writers have traditionally turned to tools to help them manage content, stay organised and increase productivity, such as notebooks and sticky notes. Despite technological advances in other creative industries, most writing software still acts simply as digitised versions of these traditional "pen and paper" tools, offering word processing, record keeping or basic timeline generation tools.
AI has the potential to radically transform this landscape. However, the majority of conversations about AI within writing circles currently centre around the threat to jobs created by text-generation AI. There is a clear and underexploited opportunity to utilise AI to support writers of all disciplines as they plan, write and edit, demonstrating how AI can speed up and strengthen the writing process without generating text on writers' behalves.
Our feasibility project far exceeded our objectives, enabling us to develop a functional end-to-end proof-of-concept prototype of PinTale: an intelligent content structuring platform, with novel large language model and machine learning-based functionalities and dynamic visualisations to support the writing and editing process. The prototype includes:
* Large Language Model and ontology: the underpinning LLM and structured frameworks (or "ontologies") to map novels (or other text types) around essential story elements, e.g., characters, themes, and plots.
* Graph generation: the ability to generate dynamic visualisations from the ontology, e.g., timeline maps, character interactions, and visualisations of pacing, mood and intensity.
* Searchable note database: using smart meta tagging to allow users/PinTale to access the right information in the right form from their notes.
This extension will enable the next stage of development of PinTale, bringing us close to an MVP for beta release, before commercialisation. This project will deliver the data, service and application layers of PinTale, with key areas for development including:
* Ontologies: developing new ontologies to enable PinTale to map the structure of plots, sub-plots, imagery, and themes.
* User interface: developing a highly-intuitive user interface, able to show smart graphical visualisations of plots, sub-plots, themes, characters, imagery, and pacing.
Our established route-to-market and business model gives £14.4m projected ARR by year 5, establishing PinTale as a global exporter of writing software.
Whether it's fiction, academia, journalism, or any other type of longform content, writing is a complex and arduous task requiring significant planning, preparation and note-keeping. This is one of the key reasons why \>80% of people want to write a book, but only 3% who start ever finish (polished-pages.com).
Writers have traditionally turned to tools to help them manage content, stay organised and increase productivity, such as notebooks and sticky notes. Despite technological advances in other creative industries, most writing software still acts simply as digitised versions of traditional 'pen and paper' tools, offering word-processing, record-keeping or basic timeline generation tools with no cross-communication.
AI has the potential to radically transform this landscape. However, the majority of conversations about AI within writing circles currently centre around the threat to jobs created by text-generation AI. There is a clear and underexploited opportunity to utilise AI to support writers of all disciplines as they plan and write, demonstrating how AI can speed up and strengthen the writing process without generating text on writers' behalves.
We are developing PinTale: an intelligent content structuring platform, with novel AI functionalities and dynamic visualisations to support the writing process. Initially, it will comprise digital tools for fiction writers to deliver smart visualisation of key data input by the author to support them in plotting, characterisation, pacing and more: significantly disrupting existing software tools and meeting identified writer needs. Future features will expand PinTale's functionality to serve wider writing groups including journalists and academics.
This project will conduct a feasibility study for our AI-enabled technology, working with AI-expert partners Combine AI and active writers' groups including members of the Bath Spa University Creative Writing Department to define desired and necessary features for end-users and to establish the route to achieving them. By project end we will deliver the architecture and design for the PinTale platform, grounded in extensive user research and reporting.
Crucially, PinTale will never generate any text on writers' behalves. It will learn from the inputs they choose to give and deliver useful, relevant smart data visualisation and guidance to help them write better longform content -- not to write it for them. This represents a unique opportunity to transform the narrative around AI in writing and wider creative circles, providing a use-case for how it can act as a tool to support creators rather than to supplant them.
Combine AI will deliver an ambitious R&D project that will design, develop and evaluate new innovative components to augment its existing meeting assistant product.
Combine AI will deliver an ambitious R&D project that will design, develop and evaluate new innovative components to augment its existing meeting assistant product.
A feasibility study to explore the viability and potential of a travel optimisation technology in an international market.
This project will deliver a prototype that will perform automatic travel optimisation and scheduling for field-based workers.
This project aims to develop and evaluate a prototype that augments virtual meetings with unique features that improve the productivity of workers that are participating from their home.
The prototype will be evaluated in a closed beta programme that will launch the product and provide important user feedback for commercial exploitation opportunities.
This industrial research project delivers a prototype virtual assistant that provides productivity enhancements for virtual meetings. The prototype will be powered by artificial intelligence that aims to understand multiple characteristics of meetings and communicate this with meeting stakeholders.