Has the AI firm behind the Brexit campaign had a second referendum on its political activity?
London-based Faculty AI collected over a quarter of a million pounds for providing its data services to Dominic Cummings’ Vote Leave campaign in 2016, and also worked with the parent company of the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica. It has since been awarded hundreds of thousands of pounds across at least 30 UK government contracts, including £400,000 to ‘collect and analyse the tweets of UK citizens’.
But such was the media frenzy over Faculty’s controversial work, it opted to move out of politics altogether.
In a 2021 interview its CEO told the Standard: “Ultimately we decided politics was divisive, not because it is inherently wrong but because lots of people disagree with each other.
“We came to the decision that it was negatively impacting our ability to do other things so we have stopped doing anything to do with politics.”
Not for long though, it would appear.
While there’s no sign the firm is getting involved in election campaigns, Canadian news site The Investigative Journalism Foundation reports that Faculty has quietly hired top political lobbying firm Policy Concepts in order to chat with government officials in Ontario “about how artificial intelligence is being used in the United Kingdom to improve decision-making,” according to the firm’s lobbying registration filing.
Policy Concepts boasts it can “create communications programs that shift the media narrative and public opinion in your favour.” Faculty knows a thing or two about that.
Sign up to the weekly City Spy newsletter for your unmissable round-up of all the gossip, rumours, and covert goings-on inside the Square Mile: standard.co.uk/newsletters
