Video: 10 Minute IT Jams - An update from Orbital Insight

Geospatial analytics is gaining ground. That is the promise from Orbital Insight, a company at the forefront of delivering artificial intelligence-driven insights from above. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Orbital Insight is eyeing expansion across the Asia-Pacific, hoping to bring its platform of satellite, mobile and location data to more businesses and governments than ever before.

Mike Kim, Orbital Insight's head of Asia Pacific, explained the company's vision in a recent interview for Tech Day. "We're focused on bringing best-in-class AI algorithms to geospatial data," he said. "All packaged within our software which is called Go."

Geospatial data, as Kim outlined, is anything tagged with latitude and longitude which has business value. This includes everything from satellite imagery to mobile location data, and now, a host of emerging data sources that can reveal shifting economic and social patterns.

The company's ambitions go well beyond simply collecting data. Kim described how Orbital Insight's Go platform is designed for ease and speed. "When you log in – it's in the cloud. You can conceptualise a project, create a project within five minutes," he said. As an example, he shared a scenario using Sydney's Vivid Lights festival: "I want to see which attraction for Vivid Light has the most activity. I can create that project in five minutes, get the results in 15 to 20 minutes, so within the course of a 30-minute meeting, I could create a project, show you the results, and we could be talking about the analysis."

This ability to pull actionable insights so rapidly, Kim stressed, sets Orbital Insight apart. "We want to make that easier and easier to use, faster for end users. We're focused on adding more datasets – our customers always want more data."

Industry reach is a significant focus. Orbital Insight has four key sectors in its sights: financial services, government, consumer goods, and real estate. "Financial services – that's a key industry for us. Governments, including the US government and allied and partnered governments around the world," he said.

A major goal for this year is to increase the company's work with the governments of Australia and New Zealand. "Based on our work with the US government, we want to really increase work, or have work, with Australian and New Zealand governments," Kim said. "Consumer goods is another – Unilever is one of our most public customers, using us for supply chain analysis and tracking a key topic for them, deforestation. And finally, the fourth industry would be real estate."

Expansion in the Asia-Pacific region is well under way. "Interestingly, Tokyo was our first international office opened," Kim revealed. "Japan, the third largest economy in the world, is really the second largest economy for us in terms of buyer of US technology, and we just found tremendous interest in Tokyo, so we set up an office in 2018, started hiring staff."

From this Tokyo hub, Orbital Insight has built a network of partners and customers across the region. "We've got Japanese partners, investors and customers ranging across those industries," he said. "We've set up partners in Australia and Korea, and we're working on building out that partnership network in Australia."

In Australia specifically, Orbital Insight has formed a strategic partnership with analytics firm Location IQ, which counts leading retailers among its clients. Kim explained, "We're working with them closely as a strategic partner. So we've got partners here in Australia, and we want to build that out, and eventually, we'd love to set up office and team and staff here in country to support ANZ."

Innovations continue to drive the company forward. Kim highlighted ongoing improvements: "We're working on improving all of our datasets – satellite imagery, mobile location data, AIS shipping data – getting more observations, or revisits as we say in satellite terminology."

Excitement is also growing around new data types, such as connected vehicle data. "Many don't know that this is coming into the analytics market," Kim said. "We've got navigation systems on cars – those have latitude and longitude. By the way, all of this is anonymised – we're looking at aggregated economic activity indicators. Connected vehicle data will be added into our platform shortly and we're finding that it's a powerful data source to understand anywhere that car activity would be of use – retail parking lots, for example. It's quite powerful data."

Despite the company's global aspirations and technological sophistication, Kim believes the human aspect remains vital. "Anyone that's interested, feel free to reach out to me," he said, offering a personal invitation to potential clients or partners. "We'd love to have a discussion with you."

The company's ambitions are clear – to make geospatial analytics accessible, rapid, and relevant across industries and regions, all powered by a blend of artificial intelligence and deep datasets. As the interview drew to a close, Kim left no doubt about the company's drive for the future. "Thanks for having me on Tech Day, Mitch," he said.