FAQs

Good question. We create a secure and private cloud environment for you in Amazon Web Services. We are trusted by Australian government departments and other major private companies to protect their data. We will never use your raw data for any other purposes. We can provide further security credentials if you require it.

If only what we didn’t know couldn’t hurt us! Some CEOs tell us that they’re worried about reputation and business consequences. But really – in the end – the earlier you know about something going off the rails, the earlier you can solve it. Most CEOs and project leaders tell us that their biggest problem is that projects can be underperforming, or in serious jeopardy, for months before it bubbles up to them. And then their options are seriously limited.

Octant AI is an early warning system. What you discover and how you deal with it is in your control.

Wondering what to do with data deluge? Octant AI helps you to cut through the noise.

Octant AI is flagging a project where something isn’t right. You and your project team then use your expertise to analyse the project and diagnose the problem. It’s an early warning system that gives you more time to identify the issue and solve it. It will even tell you what the issue is, and why the project is in distress, if the right data is in the system.

It’s amazing how often we get this question (project controls we’re looking at you). Let’s explain how we’ve done this.

Machine learning has an amazing ability to detect complex patterns in data that we can’t see. For instance, we use machine learning to help us detect fraudulent bank transactions, block spam email and so on. At Octant AI, we’ve trained powerful and sensitive machine learning algorithms to find the distinct patterns in project data that let it identify problem projects far earlier than normal methods can. These patterns are remarkably stable across project types. In fact, we can show that Octant AI makes portfolio level predictions with over 90% accuracy and gives an average of about 35% earlier warning.

Machine learning is powerful at detecting the “ticking time bomb” in your project portfolio because we make use of its sensitivity to find the distinct patterns that are highly predictive of project margin, revenue, cashflow, cost or time distress.

Don’t worry, many companies are in the same boat. This is why we have a collaborative approach to unlocking your data. You will have valuable data, and plenty of it, and it is easier to access and use than you think. We start with a data discovery workshop and then work together to identify the data we need, work out how to extract it and make it all happen. From beginning to end, it takes about two hours over a two-week period.

All new technology is scary at first. There was a time when email was scary too.

But you probably use AI every day and aren’t aware of it. The ways we use AI everyday are huge; every time you use your smartphone keyboard and it suggests the word you’re typing, blocking spam in your email, using google or siri to search, navigating your vehicle, blocking fraud on your bank account, and the list keeps growing.

Our AI is an early warning system for project managers to know that something is heading off the rails. They then use their expertise to identify the problem and work out how to solve it.

It helps them see the problem sooner.

AI complements your people and your systems. It doesn’t replace – it makes them more effective. Think of it like a heart rate monitor on a patient. The best doctors with the best medicines will still use heart rate monitors to flag when a patient needs attention.

Octant AI provides project managers with the red flags for their projects 35% earlier than current methods. That means on a 10-month project, the project manager would know four months earlier than normal if the project is going off the rails. Instead of concerns finally bubbling up to the executive at month six, you’d know in month two. Then your team with their proven systems can investigate the problem and spend their time getting things back on track.

The bottom line is that machine learning is much more reliable than human project outcome forecasting. In our experience, human forecasting is right about 60% – 70% of the time and AI forecasting is right over 90% of the time, on average. And the AI gets smarter with more data from more projects.

We’ve implemented Octant AI with a range of construction companies and government clients. In every case, Octant AI is complementing the project managers to help them see problem projects sooner.

Because it is a new technology, most assume it will cost a fortune.

The good news is that Octant AI charges a monthly fee based on the size of your project portfolio, so it is scaled to suit clients of your size. Importantly, the cost is recouped in the first month if it helps you identify a project in distress and get it back on track. For organisations of your size, Octant AI could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars per month. What does a project in distress typically cost you?

Our solution involves some collaboration and iterative development between our teams so that we can customise the product to work the way you want it to for your business’s needs. By the end of the pilot, you’ll have an invaluable insight into the performance of your project portfolio. Our clients have spotted projects in distress immediately and been able to save hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The pioneering has well and truly been done. We are very much in the mass implementation phase.

AI is already being used by many construction companies, not to mention even more government departments and banks.