TELUS International, a digital customer experience (DCX) innovator that designs, builds and delivers next-generation solutions for global and disruptive brands, has announced the acquisition of Bangalore-based Playment, a provider of data annotation and computer vision tools and services specialized in 2D and 3D image, video and LiDAR.
The acquisition follows TELUS International’s recent purchase of Lionbridge AI and builds upon the company’s existing deep domain expertise and experience in data annotation, according to a statement.
“We are very excited to welcome Playment and its highly engaged, world-class product and engineering team to our TELUS International family today. The acquisition will meaningfully accelerate our company’s computer vision capabilities and further bolster our position at the forefront of our global peers with respect to technology innovation, strategy excellence and talent,” said Jeff Puritt, president and CEO of TELUS International. “As one of the key enabling technologies for today’s advanced AI applications, computer vision is among the most revolutionary technologies of our generation with applications across every sector of the economy. The technology has become increasingly valuable to tech firms and the wider market as brands seek to uncover solutions for scenarios that typically require complex human judgement from visual and spatial patterns to solve nuanced business challenges, and build innovative, market-leading smart products and services.”
“Standing still is not an option for any company in any industry, but developing and powering the innovations of tomorrow requires a large and continuous supply chain of high-quality image and video training data, which also happens to be the most significant bottleneck in AI development,” added Puritt. “With the addition of Playment’s expertise, ingenuity and proprietary data annotation platform, TELUS International is more strongly positioned than ever to meet our clients’ current and future needs to support their ongoing growth and evolution. As we continue to expand and evolve as a team and as a company, our focus will remain on empowering our clients to meet the accelerated pace of change in today’s digital world and creating long-term value for our clients, shareholders, team members and the communities where we operate.”
Playment was founded in 2015 and received funding from Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF Partners) and Y Combinator in the early phases of its development.
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