Want to know how much has changed since we started EDO ten years ago?
When we were hiring our early team, “AI” was decidedly uncool.
I have a distinct memory from back in 2015 of debating with our CTO about how to describe our company on job descriptions as we recruited top data scientists and engineers.
We were a new idea – applying advanced AI models to complex data sets that were otherwise ignored as exhaust to solve a valuable industry’s specific problems, all deployed in a SaaS model.
Specifically, we knew Media & Entertainment needed to make crucial decisions based on complex consumer behavioral patterns, and we knew they needed AI software automation to make these decisions with insight, precision, speed, and efficiency.
He warned me: “We all roll our eyes at everyone saying ‘artificial intelligence’. That’s just marketing. We should say ‘advanced machine learning and deep learning’ if we want to be taken seriously,” with the same weary tone that your son or daughter might inform you that “saying ‘six-seven’ isn’t cool, unc.”
So we ditched the AI references, but kept the sex appeal of working on predictive outcomes for Media & Entertainment.
As I reflect on the decade-long journey that led us to our recent company milestone of profitability, the AI renaissance is a great example of one of the many lessons I’ve learned along the way: it can feel lonely, even scary, to be early to a revolution.
But if you can sustain your focus on the cutting edge long enough, clients (and competitors) will eventually follow your lead.
And now, suddenly, all the whale-chasers who were shouting about alternative audience currencies are claiming they are all about outcomes (and still audiences, and the kitchen sink). And AI, of course.
Jack of all trades? Sounds more like master of none.
To deliver revolutionary technology, it’s critical to remember that it must offer startlingly new capabilities AND transformative unit economics. That combination is the less discussed secret to Google’s success decades ago in search and will be essential in today’s AI revolution.
In Vertical AI, it’s about solving specific industry problems – in our case, unlocking valuable behavioral signals from data sets that were otherwise too noisy for human brains to analyze – and performing the tasks with greater accuracy and speed and, critically, at a fundamentally lower cost than “throwing bodies at the problem” ever could.
At EDO, we had no choice but to develop our own Vertical AI models. The existing offerings in the industry were too inaccurate and slow for our clients’ demanding requirements. And we could not afford to hire an army of workers to pore over the massive data sets. Anyway, they would have failed under the complexity if they didn’t quit from the drudgery first.
Focus was one big lesson from developing a profitable Vertical AI company over the past decade. Our focus wasn’t perfect of course – some of our very specific solutions for the film industry were too vertical to scale. But by sticking to our strategic vision – that outcomes would be essential in a streaming-first TV ecosystem – we’re delivering on the promise of revolutionary technology.
As we close 2025 and enter 2026, I will try to share a few more lessons from EDO’s 10-year journey, as we look forward to our next 10...