A brilliant product that nobody uses has no impact

Maarten Sukel has been working with AI since the days when machine learning focused mainly on image recognition and R&D projects. He was part of the first cohort of the Dutch data science programme at the University of Amsterdam and later completed his PhD at the same university, focusing on multimodal machine learning.
Today, he is an entrepreneur. Through his company, The AI Factory, he develops AI products for clients. Alongside this, he built his own platform: BeleidsRadar.

The origins of BeleidsRadar

BeleidsRadar did not start as a commercial strategy, but as an observation. “I simply saw a real opportunity here. A lot of government information is public, but difficult to access.” That fragmentation was the direct trigger for building a solution.
Maarten gathered information from hundreds of sources and consolidated it into a single system. BeleidsRadar consolidates parliamentary documents, municipal records and debates. Debates are automatically transcribed and made searchable. Users can indicate which topics are relevant to them and receive notifications accordingly. The goal is clear: spend less time searching, without missing important information.

Who is BeleidsRadar for?

The primary user groups are journalists and businesses.
Speaking about journalists, Maarten explains: “Debates are automatically transcribed. That’s fantastic for them. If they want to check what politician X has said about a certain topic over the past few years, they can simply look it up.”
For businesses, it provides an efficient way to monitor developments at a significantly lower cost than hiring a consultant. Sometimes users receive signals before topics reach the news. At the same time, Maarten observes how media and politics influence each other: “Politicians sometimes start talking about things because they’re in the news.”

From building to scaling

“In the first year, my focus was mainly on improving the service. But it has now reached a level where it’s ready to scale.” That also required a shift in role. “If you come from a technical background, you tend to keep building. But a brilliant product that nobody uses still has no societal impact.” For Maarten, marketing and sales are not at odds with technology; they are essential to ensuring that technology actually makes a difference.

The ambition does not stop at the Netherlands.
“It’s a problem that exists in almost every country. In the Netherlands, we’re fortunate that government data is relatively open. But in countries where data is less accessible, if you manage to unlock it properly, you can make an even greater impact.”

“I never find technical developments frightening. I actually find them exciting. But the challenge isn’t always to go for the newest technology; it’s to choose what’s best for the product.” He warns against superficial applications. Many new products are presented as chatbots, but in his view the real value lies beneath the surface: “It’s about what sits underneath. That has to be right.”

The future of RankmyAI

Maarten sees parallels between BeleidsRadar.nl and RankmyAI.com. Both use technology to make unstructured and fragmented data more accessible and transparent.

When asked how RankmyAI could better serve AI tool builders, several ideas emerge: “More visibility into how the rankings and underlying metrics evolve over time would be a valuable addition.” He also sees opportunities for investors, not only to identify opportunities through data, but ideally to help connect builders and investors more directly.