Sotheby’s has announced the acquisition of Thread Genius, an artificial intelligence startup specialising in taste-based image recognition and recommendation technologies. Thread Genius was founded by Andrew Shum and Ahmad Qamar, two software and machine learning engineers, who will be joining the auction house this week. Recently, Sotheby’s also appointed Richard Vibert, a data scientist now head of data & analytics strategy, who joined from Hong Kong venture capital firm Arbor Ventures, where he specialised in investments in big data, machine learning and blockchain.
According to a statement by Jennifer Deason, Sotheby’s head of strategy & corporate development who will be overseeing the department, these two appointments are part of a larger initiative based on ‘the strategic capture and use of data’ to ‘improve internal processes and provide a wider range of services to clients’.
Watch a demo of Thread Genius here
6 February 2018
