The artificial intelligence (AI) industry is experiencing unprecedented growth, projected to exceed $1.8 trillion by 2030. But this massive expansion faces the critical challenge of sourcing the high-quality human knowledge needed to train increasingly sophisticated AI models.

Despite the hype around automation, AI still depends deeply on human input. Behind every intelligent model is diverse, nuanced, and constantly evolving human insight. And as models grow more complex, their need for high-quality, human-generated data only increases.

Today’s systems face three main bottlenecks when addressing this challenge, which are quality verification, expert coordination, and economic alignment. This is creating an unprecedented opportunity.

As companies run to solve these issues and tap into this massive market, Sapien has emerged as a powerful solution that provides access to verified expertise at scale and creates new earning opportunities for millions of contributors.

While there’s fear that AI might replace jobs, platforms like Sapien prove the opposite. They prove the opposite, showing that AI can create far more jobs than it eliminates. For the first time, people from all backgrounds can earn by contributing their unique knowledge, no matter where they are or what resources they have.

This shift could transform lives, not by replacing traditional jobs but by removing the barriers to them. For the first time, someone with nothing more than a $20 Android phone can earn a living wage by contributing to AI. There is no need for a college degree, fluent English, or even a car to drive for Uber.

Sapien aims to build the first decentralized data foundry, an open protocol where quality is enforced through code and contributors earn rewards by staking their expertise.

Unlocking AI’s Full Potential

For AI to really work well, it needs high-quality data to learn from. That’s why Sapien built a global community where anyone can help train AI by doing interesting, hands-on tasks.

In simple terms, it means people like doctors, engineers, and other experts can help make better medical and technical models. Not to mention, they can get rewarded for their work while also building their on-chain reputation.

Models can’t just be trained on data from one part of the world. Instead, they need voices from all kinds of people, across different races, genders, cultures, and backgrounds. That’s why Sapien’s open and global setup matters so much.

But if we want AI that actually works for the world, we need to hear from the world. It can’t just be built on data from a small group of people. It needs all kinds of voices, from different backgrounds, cultures, genders, and races. That’s what makes Sapien’s open, global setup so important. And it’s not only about experts. Everyone should be part of it.

To bring in and keep high-quality users, Sapien makes AI training feel more like a game. It should be fun, interactive, and rewarding.

There’s a progress system with skill levels and badges for different areas of expertise, missions that keep things fresh, real-time feedback to help people get better, and leaderboards to add a bit of friendly competition.

Through Sapien’s progression system, users unlock advanced training opportunities and get access to The Forge. This advanced training facility matches tasks to proven expertise and offers bonus earnings and limited-time events with special rewards.

What Sets Sapien Apart in the AI Revolution

As AI mania takes over the world, companies are eager to stake their claim. But what makes Sapien stand out is a combination of strong elements that position it at the center of the AI revolution.

For starters, the vision of the first decentralized data foundry is led by a team of highly skilled professionals. This includes CEO Rowan Stone, who is the co-creator of Coinbase’s L2 Base; CSO Trevor Koverko, founder of Polymath; CTO Kelly Ryan, who’s behind the startup FastAF, and COO Henry Chen, who led growth at several tech unicorns.

With the guidance of these experts, Sapien is building a decentralized data collection network designed for the AI age.

And the timing couldn’t be more urgent. Demand for human input is at an all-time high because every company, from startups to global enterprises, now needs its own vertical AI model to stay competitive. As B2B SaaS gets replaced by domain-specific AI tools, the race is on to train smarter, more specialized models faster than ever before.

Rather than simply supplying labeled datasets, the protocol provides rich, dynamic, and high-quality human interaction data that AI models need to evolve beyond basic pattern recognition. With clear provenance, it also ensures verifiable, high-integrity data from trusted sources. So, no more “garbage in, garbage out” but “value in, value out.”

The foundation, meanwhile, is blockchain technology that enables it to ensure transparency and fairness in its decentralized gig economy for data collection.

Sapien then tops it all off with gamified tasks that make AI training lucrative and exciting.

To realize its bold vision of such a feature-rich platform, Sapien has also secured $10.5 million in a seed round. The funding round was led by venture capital firm Variant with participation from Yield Guild Games (YGG), Animoca, Primitive Ventures, Orange DAO, and HF0, as well as angel investors like Kevin Jiang, a founding team member of Softbank Vision Fund, and YGG founder Gabby Dizon.

Notably, Sapien is working with Alibaba, Baidu, MidJourney, the United Nations, and several other large enterprise partners to solve their data-driven challenges. Moreover, the platform has recruited hundreds of thousands of AI workers to provide data.

Sapien has already gained significant traction, with 525,000 user signups, 55,000 monthly active users (MAU), and over 33 million tasks completed to date. 

Leveraging Strategic Alliances to Fuel AI’s Growth

To accelerate AI breakthroughs across industries and unlock the collective intelligence of humanity, Sapien is working with strategic partners like Worldcoin, YGG, GIG, Veera, and Aither.

Most recently, the decentralized data foundry collaborated with leading digital wallet Airtm to streamline and enhance payout processes for contributors worldwide. Its payment infrastructure will also help Sapien reduce operational complexity, thereby saving time and cutting costs.

As a cross-border payout platform, Airtm offers fair, fast, and flexible borderless payouts that ensure workers get paid on time and without financial barriers. For this, the platform provides a wide range of stablecoin-powered payout solutions with competitive rates and 500+ withdrawal methods. In the past year, Airtm has processed more than $1.2 billion in USDC transactions.

By choosing Airtm as its primary payout provider, Sapien will offer faster and more efficient payouts to its contributors all over the world while reducing fees and operational overhead so that contributors keep more of what they earn.

“This is a crucial step in our mission to build a more inclusive and efficient future for AI-driven work,” said Stone.

With a combination of a decentralized network, gamification, a talented team, strong backing, strategic partnerships, and global enterprise customers, Sapien aims to capitalize on this trillion-dollar AI opportunity and completely redefine how AI gets trained.