Companies often find it hard to find and engage with high-quality, high-caliber professionals for market research and assist their businesses. AI and machine learning may hold the key to solving this problem.

Today, NewtonX, a B2B research company, has launched its NewtonX Knowledge Graph, aiming to solve this exact problem. 

NewtonX claims it is the only company in the market that can guarantee professionals have been ID, background, and subject matter expertise-checked. The experts found within its solution help businesses make critical decisions regarding their products, services, pricing, or marketing innovations, understanding the customer’s voice, and providing competitive benchmarks. 

“When my co-founder Sascha Eder and I were working together at McKinsey, we were frustrated by the quality, speed, and cost involved in the process of sourcing B2B insights,” Germain Chastel, co-founder and CEO at NewtonX, told me. “We had a very large and formative client in the tech space that wanted subject-matter experts to weigh in on areas such as virtual reality, AI, and big data. However, we weren’t getting the results we wanted.”

That’s where artificial intelligence and machine learning came into play.

“We needed reliable data from highly specific populations, but we had no way of accessing this data at scale,” Chastel said. “Most B2B market research relies primarily on consumer-oriented panels where fraud can be rampant. Vetting for experience and verifying people are who they say they are, becomes nearly impossible to do at scale. It was an opportunity for AI and automation.”

How does it work, and how did NewtonX manage to create such an extensive network of experts?

“Rather than pull from a closed pool of respondents in a traditional panel, we built the NewtonX Graph, our proprietary technology that sources from an open network of 1.1 billion B2B professionals across over 140 industries,” Chastel said. “The Graph uses a series of API integrations that interface with private databases from NewtonX partners (recruiting firms, professional associations, trade associations, conference organizers, etc.) as well as data providers and search engines such as Dow Jones Factiva, Bing, Google, LinkedIn, and Xing, among others to scan for professionals that match customer criteria. This is how we deliver the largest possible reach without compromising any nuance.”

The use cases for NewtonX tend to be in quantitative surveys and qualitative consultations, which are sometimes combined to provide its clients with the information they need to make crucial business decisions.

“We see a lot of interest from large enterprise organizations in our NewtonX Q3 Formula, which is a mix of qualitative and quantitative methodologies applied to the same population,” Chastel said. “It’s simple but effective: we start with 1:1 interviews and use those qualitative in-depth insights to inform a survey to refine the initial findings at scale and quantify them. Then we take the survey results and follow up with individual respondents who provided interesting insights to discuss further. Since every professional that works with NewtonX goes through a 2-step ID check, we can reconnect with them to drive deeper learnings.”

Pricing for NewtonX doesn’t follow the traditional market research model. Instead, the startup is taking an alternate approach.

“Unlike our competitors, there is no subscription required to work with us, Chastel said. “We have two pricing models: a pay-per-project fee and a retainer fee. Clients who work with us often mostly choose a retainer structure since it extends a discount. Pricing varies for each project depending on the scope but is primarily based on five key factors: Audience target description (e.g., CEOs vs. VPs), the number of respondents needed, the market and geography, length of interview and survey, and quotas or screener questions.”

NewtonX Knowledge Graph is the latest launch from the New York-based startup, which has raised $15 million in funding over 3 rounds.

“In addition to introducing the NewtonX Knowledge Graph to the market, we just launched a new brand identity that better expresses who we are and what we do,” Chastel said. “It emphasizes the human-centered approach we take to cutting-edge technology to help our clients find knowledgeable, accurate answers to their most pressing questions. Internally, the next generation of our platform rolls out this spring which will reduce fielding time and allow clients to self-serve more easily.”