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Shiny Knowledge, the Israeli net scraping firm that defeated each Meta and Elon Musk’s X in federal court docket, unveiled a complete AI infrastructure suite Wednesday designed to provide synthetic intelligence methods unfettered entry to real-time net information — a functionality the corporate argues Massive Tech platforms are attempting to monopolize.
The announcement of Deep Lookup, Browser.ai, and enhanced information assortment protocols represents a dramatic enlargement for the decade-old firm, which has remodeled from a specialised net scraping service into what CEO Or Lenchner calls “a novel infrastructure layer for AI corporations.” The transfer comes as synthetic intelligence corporations more and more wrestle to entry present net info wanted to energy chatbots, autonomous brokers, and different AI functions.
“The intelligence of right this moment’s LLMs is not its limiting issue; entry is,” Lenchner stated in an unique interview with VentureBeat. “We’ve spent the final decade preventing for open entry to public net information, and these new choices deliver us to the subsequent chapter in our journey, one characterised by really accessible information and the next rise of contextually-aware brokers.”
The launch follows Shiny Knowledge’s high-profile authorized victories in 2024, when federal judges dismissed lawsuits from each Meta and X alleging the corporate illegally scraped their platforms. These rulings established essential authorized precedent defining what constitutes “public information” on the web — info that may be considered with out logging in and subsequently may be legally collected and used.
The court docket circumstances revealed that each Meta and X had been Shiny Knowledge prospects even whereas suing the corporate, highlighting the contradictory stance many tech giants have taken towards net scraping. The rulings have broader implications for the AI {industry}, which depends closely on net information to coach and function language fashions.
“It was revealed in court docket that each of them had been a Shiny Knowledge buyer, as a result of everybody wants information, everybody, particularly those that are constructing fashions,” Lenchner defined. “We’re the one firm that has the monetary assets, and I might even say the braveness to do this.”
Decide William Alsup, who presided over the X case, wrote that giving social media corporations “free rein to resolve, on any foundation, who can acquire and use information” dangers creating “info monopolies that may disserve the general public curiosity.” The ruling established that information viewable with out login credentials constitutes public info that may be legally scraped.
Shiny Knowledge had beforehand filed a countersuit in opposition to X, alleging the platform violated antitrust legal guidelines by attempting to create a knowledge monopoly to profit Musk’s AI firm, xAI. Nonetheless, that case has since been settled. “Although the phrases confidential, Shiny Knowledge has by no means backed down from its elementary perception that public information ought to be accessible to the general public. Per that perception, we’re happy to report that Shiny Knowledge will proceed to supply the identical industry-leading companies that it all the time has and that our prospects have come to anticipate,” Lenchner stated.
Deep Lookup and Browser.ai goal AI corporations scuffling with information entry
The corporate’s new merchandise deal with what Lenchner identifies because the three core necessities for AI methods: algorithms, compute energy, and information entry. Whereas Shiny Knowledge doesn’t develop AI algorithms or present computing assets, it goals to grow to be the definitive resolution for the third requirement.
Deep Lookup capabilities as a pure language analysis engine designed to reply advanced, multi-layered enterprise questions in real-time. In contrast to general-purpose engines like google or AI chatbots that present summaries, Deep Lookup focuses on complete outcomes for queries starting with “discover all.” For instance, customers can ask for “all transport corporations that went by means of the Panama and Suez canals in 2023 whose Q3 revenues declined by over 2 %.”
The system attracts from Shiny Knowledge’s huge net archive, which at the moment comprises over 200 billion HTML pages and provides 15 billion month-to-month. By subsequent yr, the archive is predicted to exceed 500 billion pages. “It’s not simply random net pages, it’s really what the world cares about, as a result of our 20,000 prospects symbolize billions of web customers,” Lenchner famous.
Browser.ai represents what the corporate calls “the {industry}’s first unblockable, AI-native browser.” Designed particularly for autonomous AI brokers, the cloud-based service mimics human habits to entry web sites with out triggering bot detection methods. It helps pure language instructions and might carry out advanced net interactions like reserving flights or making restaurant reservations.
The browser infrastructure already processes over 150 million net actions each day, in response to the corporate. “Nearly all of them are prospects,” Lenchner stated of AI agent corporations which have raised vital funding. “As a result of what we found out, they usually found out, is that we remedy that drawback of getting into a web site with out being blocked and executing net actions on the web site.”
MCP Servers (Mannequin Context Protocol) supplies a low-latency management layer enabling AI brokers to look, crawl, and extract reside information in real-time. The protocol permits builders to construct AI methods that may act on present info reasonably than relying solely on coaching information.
Patent portfolio and proxy community create aggressive moat in opposition to blocking
Shiny Knowledge’s aggressive benefit stems from what Lenchner describes as an “obsession” with overcoming web site blocking mechanisms. The corporate holds over 5,500 patent claims on its expertise and operates the world’s largest proxy community with greater than 150 million IP addresses throughout 195 international locations.
“We’ve such a superb look into the web,” Lenchner defined. “For a very long time now, we have now been mapping the web, and for a very long time now, we’re additionally archiving large chunks of the web.”
The corporate’s strategy includes subtle methods to imitate human habits, utilizing actual units, IP addresses, and browser fingerprints reasonably than easy automated scripts. This makes detection and blocking extraordinarily tough for web sites.
“The one technique to block us, virtually, is to place the information behind the login, then we received’t even attempt,” Lenchner stated. “Typically there’s a new blocking logic that we received’t remedy instantly. It is going to take our analysis staff 12 hours, three days that’s like essentially the most it was, and we’ll unlock it.”
Income surpasses $100 million as AI demand explodes post-ChatGPT
Whereas Shiny Knowledge stays privately held by a non-public fairness agency, Lenchner confirmed with VentureBeat the corporate’s annual recurring income surpassed $100 million a number of years in the past. The enterprise has skilled explosive progress because the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, as AI corporations scrambled to entry coaching information and real-time info.
“Beginning March 2023, which is just about when GPT-3 modified the world, the AI, or what we name the information for AI, use case simply completely exploded for us as an organization,” Lenchner stated. “The whole lot else can be rising, as a result of everybody wants extra information, interval. However this use case is rather like nothing we’ve seen earlier than.”
The corporate serves over 20,000 companies, together with Fortune 500 corporations and main AI laboratories. Conventional prospects embrace e-commerce platforms monitoring competitor pricing, monetary companies companies looking for market intelligence, and enterprises conducting enterprise analysis.
GDPR compliance and moral practices differentiate from opponents
Shiny Knowledge has invested closely in compliance infrastructure to handle privateness considerations round information assortment. The corporate follows European GDPR and California CCPA rules, mechanically notifying people when their private info is collected from public sources and offering deletion choices.
“The regulation and the laws are clear because the European GDPR and no less than California and CCPA rules got here to play,” Lenchner defined. “If we collected your e-mail deal with, for instance, we’ll mechanically ship you an e-mail saying, ‘Hey, that is who we’re. We collected your private info from the general public area. Right here’s an enormous button you possibly can click on if you wish to assessment it, and you may clearly ask to delete it.’”
The corporate maintains a big compliance staff and in depth documentation of its practices, which proved worthwhile throughout court docket proceedings. “Enterprises particularly love us as a result of we have now our moral stand that was scrutinized in US courts twice,” Lenchner stated.
Internet entry wars intensify as tech giants search information monopolies
The battle over net information entry displays broader tensions within the AI {industry} about info management and aggressive benefit. As AI methods grow to be extra subtle, entry to present, complete net information turns into more and more worthwhile — and contentious.
Lenchner predicts the net will grow to be “extra closed” over time, just like how Google maintains unique entry to its net crawling capabilities whereas others should use various companies. “Just a few tech giants are gonna get free entry to each web site with their brokers,” he stated. “The remainder might want to use our infrastructure or another person’s infrastructure.”
The corporate can be observing new traits, together with companies scraping AI chatbots for advertising and marketing functions and the emergence of latest protocols like MCP that allow AI brokers to work together with net companies extra successfully.
“All of those guys which might be consuming huge quantities of information, and all of us are utilizing them, it’s all going in direction of constructing the brains of the robots,” Lenchner stated. “It’s okay that you’ve a chatbot that’s speaking to a human, as a result of that’s finally what a robotic will do.”
Robotic brains and agent economic system drive subsequent part of progress
Shiny Knowledge’s transformation from net scraping service to AI infrastructure supplier displays the quickly evolving wants of the substitute intelligence {industry}. As corporations rush to deploy AI brokers and autonomous methods, entry to real-time net information turns into as essential as computing energy and algorithmic sophistication.
The authorized precedents established by means of Shiny Knowledge’s court docket victories could show as vital as its technical improvements, doubtlessly shaping how the complete AI {industry} accesses and makes use of net info. With main tech platforms more and more limiting information entry whereas concurrently creating their very own AI methods, unbiased infrastructure suppliers like Shiny Knowledge could grow to be important for sustaining aggressive stability within the AI ecosystem.
“We’re an infrastructure firm,” Lenchner emphasised. “We’re very gifted engineers that hardly go anyplace, simply sit with our computer systems and write code. We’re doing it nicely. We’ve no intentions to do the rest.”
The Deep Lookup beta launches Tuesday for enterprise prospects, with normal public entry accessible by means of a waitlist. Browser.ai and MCP Servers are already accessible to enterprise shoppers by means of Shiny Knowledge’s current platform.
