Product of the Day
Quixto maps
Africa’s news
The new AI platform, developed by Cape Town’s Predix Communications, uses real-time news and maps to reveal trade and investment insights across the continent.
Quixto, a new AI-powered platform, helps users explore developments across Africa through an interactive map and real-time news analysis. Developed by Cape Town-based Predix Communications, it is designed for business users seeking trade and investment opportunities and is now available in public beta.
The platform emulates physical exploration, guiding users from country to country and concept to concept, one step at a time.
“You move progressively from a starting point, which is a particular country, then explore the territory – be it geographical or conceptual – by going from place to place, one step at a time,” says Stephen Hall, the founder and CTO of Predix Communications. “You might not know where you’re going to end up, but Quixto knows the important features in the terrain.
“It comes with you on your journey, offering suggestions – the names of companies or people, for example – that are related to where you are on the map. It makes that easier by keeping track of the path you’ve followed from your starting point to your current point. It’s like a trail of breadcrumbs you can follow if you decide to backtrack.”
Maps show the way
Quixto users navigate an interactive map of Africa to select countries of interest, supported by a feature map that suggests related concepts for further exploration. These concepts are generated by AI, which scans news coverage from across the continent hourly to identify recurring themes such as companies, individuals, and key phrases.
Photo supplied.
A screenshot of South Africa’s feature map with ‘agriculture’ and ‘technologies’ selected.
“Click on a concept and a list of the 10 most relevant news snippets from the past year instantly appears,” says Hall. “You can shorten this period to as little as the last 24 hours, but another option is to keep exploring, narrowing down your area of interest.”
Another click on the first concept adds it to the breadcrumb trail, or path, at which point the feature map is redrawn to suggest further exploration concepts that can be added to the path.
Each concept on the feature map is linked to related concepts identified by the AI engine in the news coverage it has analysed. Quixto users can also add their own search terms if the topic they’re interested in does not appear on the feature map.
“It’s a more useful and powerful way to navigate a large amount of information than reading a list of articles. You’re not searching blind without a context, and context enhances relevance.
“The other key advantage over a simple web search is the type of sources Quixto uses,” says Hall. “It focuses on news sites covering business and related areas such as politics and technology, which leads to more relevant results. Importantly, none of the sources we use is behind a paywall.
“For someone who’s looking to invest, trade, set up an operation or analyse the competition, Quixto offers an easy way to conduct up-to-the-minute, accurate research in a very unconstrained way.”
* Visit the Quixto website here.
