This announcement comes six months following a successful Series A funding round. Noteworthy achievements in 2023 include working with 17 AI model developers like Nugget AI, Papercup, and Imbue, resulting in a fivefold revenue increase from AI clients. Additionally, Prolific has established 22 partnerships, notably with Remesh, an AI-powered market-research platform, Maze, specialists in user research, and Argilla, an open-source AI fine-tuning platform. The company has also distributed over $120 million to research participants since 2014, underscoring its commitment to ethical practices in research and AI training.

The demand for Prolific's platform has surged in 2023, particularly from organizations seeking reliable human insights to enhance and train their AI models. This demand builds on the platform's established use by top-tier institutions like Ivy League universities and corporations, including Yale and Google. These entities tap into Prolific's extensive pool of vetted taskers and research participants.

In July, Prolific announced a £25 million funding raise in one of the UK's most substantial Series A rounds of the year, co-led by Partech and Oxford Science Enterprises. This investment aims to expand its AI offerings and establish a more robust presence in the United States, where over half of its customer base is located, including Kickstarter and Stanford University.

Six months post-funding, Prolific has channelled this investment into product development, expanding partnerships, and global growth. 2023 saw the launch of several key Prolific platform features, including Prolific Protocol, a proprietary system for verifying engaged participants and detecting unwanted AI use, supported by Gorilla Experiment Builder; niche participant groups with specialist skills; new study options like mutually exclusive and multiple-submission studies, common in AI training; and AI annotation tool integrations for distributing login details to participants.

Prolific's 22 new partnerships in 2023 are significant, with companies like Remesh, Maze, and Argilla integrating their products with Prolific's unmatched participant pool. As an open-source advocate, Prolific made one of its social reasoning datasets accessible through the popular open-source community HuggingFace.

In November, Prolific earned a spot on Deloitte’s UK Technology Fast 50 list, ranking the UK’s fastest-growing technology businesses. The company was also a finalist in the Scaleup of the Year category at The Europas Awards, which has previously recognized startups like Deliveroo, Spotify, and Transferwise.

Phelim Bradley, CEO of Prolific, commented on the company's progress in 2023: “AI represents one of the biggest leaps forward in technology in decades and Prolific’s unique approach to human data sourcing positions us to make these systems more accountable and less biased.”

“Our platform doesn't just offer insights; it powers world-changing research. We’re excited to bring these advantages to new markets at a pivotal moment in the progression of AI. Prolific's platform empowers cutting-edge AI developers to access an unparalleled spectrum of diverse data, spanning gender, sexuality, race, age, demographics, and sector expertise, enabling everyone to help design a future where we can encourage more responsible inputs, and more equitable outputs, for AI models.”

Reflecting on their investment in Prolific earlier this year, Omri Benayoun, General Partner at Partech, stated: “Prolific has built an incredibly powerful online platform for research. Its roots in academia means that it has applied the highest standards to quality, while its technical expertise brings innovation that sets it apart from anything else out there. Where others rely on manual recruitment methods, Prolific has built a research infrastructure covering everything from the recruiting and vetting of participants to integration of research tools. Prolific is poised to conquer global leadership in academia and is also perfectly placed to aid the development of AI.”

Andrew Santana, Head of Panel Management at Remesh, shared his thoughts on their collaboration with Prolific: "We're thrilled with our partnership with Prolific. Their rapid project execution and exceptional deliverable quality, evident in a sub-1% removal rate for qualitative research, complemented by an intuitive setup and detailed profiling, have been instrumental in meeting and often exceeding our client expectations."