Ditto AI Ltd, the UK-based Artificial Intelligence company, is pleased to announce that it has raised £4m in equity funding. The round was completed by a consortium of private and institutional investors including IP Group plc.

Ditto has patented a scalable technology for creating software advisor bots which replicate the expertise and accountability of real humans. Throughout 2017 the company continued to show strong revenue growth in its first vertical market, Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS), where its products are now in use across a broad range of public sector organisations, FTSE 250 companies and private businesses. It also successfully demonstrated proof-of-concept applications in a number of new areas outside EHS. The funds raised will allow Ditto to extend its presence in the EHS market, further develop its core platform technology and deliver new commercial applications in Tax and Healthcare.

Ditto addresses a fundamental shortcoming in so-called ‘black box’ approaches to Artificial Intelligence: the system’s inability to explain its reasoning. Ditto’s applications solve problems and provide conclusions in clear, plain language, giving them an all-important human touch. The technology is particularly well-suited to automating advice in regulated or safety-critical environments, while providing a clear audit trail of decision making, meaning that its potential applications are extremely wide-ranging.