Real world AI 2020 Annual Report Contents 2 What we do 3 Why we do it 4 Making AI work in the real world 10 Capturing the market opportunity 12 2020 highlights 14 Chairman’s message 16 CEO’s message 18 Our competitive advantage 19 Our strategic priorities 20 How we create value 22 Global crowd Artificial 24 Appen employees 26 Technology, processes, systems 28 Customer and brand 30 Financial 32 Social and environment intelligence... 36 Identifying and managing risk 44 Our approach to governance 46 Board of Directors 48 Executive Team Appen makes AI work in the real world by 50 Directors’ report 58 Remuneration report delivering high-quality training data at scale. 72 Lead auditor’s independence declaration Training data is used to build and continuously 73 Financial report 128 Directors’ declaration improve the world’s most innovative AI 129 Independent auditor’s report enhanced systems and services. 133 Additional information 136 Corporate directory Our clients include the world’s largest technology companies, global leaders in automotive, financial services, retail and healthcare, and government agencies. ...informed by Appen. About this report We have used the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) <IR> Framework and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards to guide our disclosures on how Appen creates value and which topics are financially material to our business. Appen Limited ABN 60 138 878 298 Appen 2020 Annual Report 1 Contents 2 What we do 3 Why we do it 4 Making AI work in the real world 10 Capturing the market opportunity 12 2020 highlights 14 Chairman’s message 16 CEO’s message 18 Our competitive advantage 19 Our strategic priorities 20 How we create value 22 Global crowd Artificial 24 Appen employees 26 Technology, processes, systems 28 Customer and brand 30 Financial 32 Social and environment intelligence... 36 Identifying and managing risk 44 Our approach to governance 46 Board of Directors 48 Executive Team Appen makes AI work in the real world by 50 Directors’ report 58 Remuneration report delivering high-quality training data at scale. 72 Lead auditor’s independence declaration Training data is used to build and continuously 73 Financial report 128 Directors’ declaration improve the world’s most innovative AI 129 Independent auditor’s report enhanced systems and services. 133 Additional information 136 Corporate directory Our clients include the world’s largest technology companies, global leaders in automotive, financial services, retail and healthcare, and government agencies. ...informed by Appen. About this report We have used the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) <IR> Framework and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards to guide our disclosures on how Appen creates value and which topics are financially material to our business. Appen Limited ABN 60 138 878 298 Appen 2020 Annual Report 1 What Why we do we do it ... ?Appen is the global leader in When creating AI in the development of high-quality, the real world, the data human annotated datasets for used to train the AI is machine learning and artificial more important than intelligence. the model itself. We collect, classify, translate, review AI models learn by observing large and label large volumes of image, text, volumes and diverse sets of examples. speech, audio, video and other data These examples are called training used to build and train AI systems. data. For data to be understood by an AI model, it requires associated The data is annotated by our global meaning. We provide this meaning crowd of over 1 million skilled contractors by annotating the data. who speak 235 languages and work in over 170 countries. AI performance is correlated with the volume, quality and diversity We also have the industry’s most advanced of data used for training. AI training AI-assisted annotation platform. data needs to be refreshed regularly. 2 Appen 2020 Annual Report 3 What Why we do we do it ... ?Appen is the global leader in When creating AI in the development of high-quality, the real world, the data human annotated datasets for used to train the AI is machine learning and artificial more important than intelligence. the model itself. We collect, classify, translate, review AI models learn by observing large and label large volumes of image, text, volumes and diverse sets of examples. speech, audio, video and other data These examples are called training used to build and train AI systems. data. For data to be understood by an AI model, it requires associated The data is annotated by our global meaning. We provide this meaning crowd of over 1 million skilled contractors by annotating the data. who speak 235 languages and work in over 170 countries. AI performance is correlated with the volume, quality and diversity We also have the industry’s most advanced of data used for training. AI training AI-assisted annotation platform. data needs to be refreshed regularly. 2 Appen 2020 Annual Report 3 Search Drive Search engines Autonomous and social media driving Online search powers the internet, Autonomous vehicles have the ability connecting users with appropriate to identify and interpret the immediate and relevant information. environment and operate with minimal or no human intervention. 3.5bn+ Appen supports the world’s leading 40 searches per day 1 search engines and social media terabytes Appen provides the vision and sensor networks by providing large scale of data for every annotations that are used to develop model evaluation. Our global crowd eight hours of the perception models that underpin ensures that results are tailored to users’ driving 1 autonomous driving. specific locations and demographics. 1 Auto Tech Review 2020. 1 Internet Live Stats 2020. 4 Appen 2020 Annual Report 5 Search Drive Search engines Autonomous and social media driving Online search powers the internet, Autonomous vehicles have the ability connecting users with appropriate to identify and interpret the immediate and relevant information. environment and operate with minimal or no human intervention. 3.5bn+ Appen supports the world’s leading 40 searches per day 1 search engines and social media terabytes Appen provides the vision and sensor networks by providing large scale of data for every annotations that are used to develop model evaluation. Our global crowd eight hours of the perception models that underpin ensures that results are tailored to users’ driving 1 autonomous driving. specific locations and demographics. 1 Auto Tech Review 2020. 1 Internet Live Stats 2020. 4 Appen 2020 Annual Report 5 Immerse Chat Augmented and AI-enabled chatbots virtual reality Chatbots simulate human interactions, mainly for customer service and support. Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) Understanding customer intent (natural create immersive experiences and language understanding (NLU)) and present new ways for companies to % responding with human-level accuracy engage with customers. 1 in 5 30 (natural language generation (NLG)) US consumers used Appen provides the training data that annual growth in the are only possible because of AI. 1 1 VR in 2020 is used to power the leading AR/VR chatbot market Appen’s deep expertise in data collection engines, including eye and hand tracking. and annotation specific to NLU and NLG, 1 ARtillery Intelligence 2020. combined with our global crowd, power some of the world’s leading chatbots. 1 Markets and Markets 2019. 6 Appen 2020 Annual Report 7 Immerse Chat Augmented and AI-enabled chatbots virtual reality Chatbots simulate human interactions, mainly for customer service and support. Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) Understanding customer intent (natural create immersive experiences and language understanding (NLU)) and present new ways for companies to % responding with human-level accuracy engage with customers. 1 in 5 30 (natural language generation (NLG)) US consumers used Appen provides the training data that annual growth in the are only possible because of AI. 1 1 VR in 2020 is used to power the leading AR/VR chatbot market Appen’s deep expertise in data collection engines, including eye and hand tracking. and annotation specific to NLU and NLG, 1 ARtillery Intelligence 2020. combined with our global crowd, power some of the world’s leading chatbots. 1 Markets and Markets 2019. 6 Appen 2020 Annual Report 7 Interact Shop Voice interactions E-commerce Home assistants, smart speakers and E-commerce has created a broad voice activated devices have quickly online marketplace that connects become commonplace. Automatic shoppers with retailers. COVID-19 speech recognition and natural language %+ has accelerated adoption and processing are critical to their success. e-commerce is now an indispensable 128m 21 part of everyday life for many people. Appen has been powering the world’s people in the US will of total retail sales leading voice user interfaces for 20+ years. 1 Appen supports the leading use a voice assistant in the US are online The combination of our linguistic expertise, e-commerce sites and platforms to at least monthly 1 global crowd supporting 235 languages ensure that information is accurately and leading annotation software enables categorised and searchable to us to deliver high-quality training data deliver the best customer experience. for voice interface systems. 1 Digital Commerce 360 2021. 1 eMarketer 2020. 8 Appen 2020 Annual Report 9 Interact Shop Voice interactions E-commerce Home assistants, smart speakers and E-commerce has created a