AnalogFolk Launches AI Tool BIGUP.AI to Coincide with IWD 2020

Independent global digital creative agency AnalogFolk has today announced the launch of BIGUP.AI, an AI tool specially designed to encourage women to use more impactful language. Released to coincide with International Women’s Day 2020, the tool launches in BETA and the agency is also issuing a call-to-arms for women in the creative industry to help train the tool.

BIGUP.AI analyses passive language and identifies if users are unintentionally talking themselves down. If detected, the tool makes suggestions on how to strengthen - and big up - the language so that it becomes more confident and persuasive.

The tool is a direct response to research from Dr Judith Baxter, published in The Language of Female Leadership, that demonstrates that women are four times more likely to shrink their successes and use language that undermines value and skill. A study from Major Players has shown a lack of self-promotion and confidence in the way women present themselves has been linked to a host of negative outcomes such as fewer promotions, less pay, less acceptance of (creative) ideas and unrepresentative performance reviews. In comparison, men are twice as likely to use words and phrases emphasising successes and leadership.

Over the past year, AnalogFolk has doubled its investment in R&D as the independent agency continues its push to deliver innovative ideas that create value for people and transform businesses. BIGUP.AI is a cross-discipline collaboration and the result of the agency’s continued commitment to both innovation and its mission.

“BIGUP.AI is another great example of bringing AnalogFolk’s mission to use digital to make the analog world better to life,” says Anna-Louise Gladwell, managing director, AnalogFolk London. “I’m immensely proud of the end result and of all the Folk involved for creating such an innovative solution to a very real-world problem.”

The tool is initially intended for women in the creative industry, where the average gender pay gap of the largest advertising agency networks is 18%. Powered by natural language processing and machine learning, functionality in BETA includes analysis of text and enhancement of single words. The ambition from AnalogFolk is to develop the tool to enable it to enhance sentences and paragraphs.

Sara Pouri, associate creative director, AnalogFolk, says: “Our vision for BIGUP.AI is that in the future it will be the go-to tool for women to power up their cover letters, performance reviews and CVs. To do this we need help from women to train the tool with text about themselves. That’s why we’re putting out a call-to-arms for women from all walks of the creative industry to help us train BIGUP.AI so we can scale its development and impact. ”