Quickly growing AI expert Silo AI is streamlining its processes with Cinode

Silo AI is the largest private AI lab from the Nordics with 240 AI experts. Their mission is to bring safe, human-centric and cutting-edge AI capabilities to organizations around the world.

The company uses Cinode to manage their employees’ skills and customer project talent needs, with a focus on reliability and transparency.

Silo AI believes there is a great need for skilled AI researchers to ensure that organizations remain competitive in a time when AI is changing the way we work and affecting society as a whole.

– AI is for humans. We want to ensure that it benefits everyone and has a big impact. But not all companies are as technically proficient when it comes to AI. That’s where we come in, says Ela Arasola, Talent Acquisition Specialist at Silo AI.

The company, founded in 2017, currently has over 240 employees working in machine learning and computer vision, as well as software, data & ML engineering, among others.
– We currently have five offices in Finland. We also have offices in Stockholm and Copenhagen, and we recently opened an office in Vancouver, continues Ela.

Wow, you have grown rapidly in a short time. What challenges did you see before you came into contact with Cinode?

– Managing a company with 50 employees is quite easy, but when you have such strong growth as we have, there is a lot of information that needs to be managed. We wanted a platform solution that streamlines our internal communication around our employees and customer projects, and makes it more transparent and accessible. It was also important that the platform could support our future growth, says Jaakko Vainio, COO at Silo AI.

Were there any specific problems you wanted to solve?

– One notable problem we had before was that we were vulnerable whenever unplanned absences happened. As we didn’t have a systematic way to handle employee and project information, we had to spend a lot of time on ad-hoc detective work. Another crucial challenge was to get a more efficient match of talents to assignments, continues Jaakko Vainio.

Supports productivity

Cinode’s resource planning provides current occupancy rates at the individual, team, and company levels. It is also possible to see what skills are available. The forecast view shows where it ”lights up red” and where efforts should be directed.

– The resource planning feature has greatly simplified our work. Now we can plan better and get a much better overall perspective. The entire company can access the planning and understand it, instead of everything depending on a single employee, says Jaakko.

He also highlights CV management and skill sets that support productivity within the company together with automation and reporting.

What was it like to implement Cinode?

– It has worked really well. Cinode has been accommodating and informs us about improved solutions and upcoming news. The communication has always been good, whether you have had a solution to our challenge or not. We appreciate that, says Ela.

You have also done a lot of integrations, can you tell us about them?

– The initial integration was with our HR system to automate account creation and provisioning in Cinode. We have also integrated our CRM system at a basic level, enabling sales to hand over opportunities to our talent matching team in Cinode, says Ela.

What results have you seen from implementing Cinode?

– What we immediately noticed was that internal communication is much easier, for example, if any of the employees get sick or change their project. The information is already available. You see the dates and the people involved, everything is already there. I am sure that productivity has already increased and will increase even more going forward, says Jaakko.

Would you recommend Cinode to other consulting firms?

– Yes! Especially if a company has many specific requirements and skills regarding roles and individuals, Cinode is very effective. That’s why we chose Cinode, we can work with our competency management there and the matching is in place.

As a customer, we also appreciate your way of interacting with us. You are accommodating and your developers explain the platform in detail. Even if you don’t have the technical expertise, you understand. For example, we see that the CV import is improving and we like the openness about how you want to develop the platform going forward, concludes Jaakko Vainio.