How This AI Start-up Uses ‘Dragonfly Thinking’ to Help You Make Smarter Decisions
A tool that uses generative AI to lead humans through structured frameworks to improve their decision-making was inspired by the vision of its namesake insect, says founder Anthea Roberts.
Fact file
Co-founders: Professor Anthea Roberts, 46 (far right); Professor Miranda Forsyth, 50
Investors: Friends and family
First customer: People and Decisions, 2024
Headquarters: Canberra
Staff: Three
What’s your elevator pitch?
“Dragonflies have eyes with thousands of lenses and take the inputs to form a 360-degree vision of their world in a way that gives them incredible foresight. We are pioneering AI tools to bring in diverse perspectives to help people make better decisions – it’s an upgrade to the human operating system. We want to enable individuals, businesses and governments to see the world with greater clarity and act with greater foresight.”
What was the problem you were trying to solve?
“Studies have shown that people who view complex issues through ‘dragonfly eyes’ consistently outperform experts in forecasting. They integrate many different perspectives, whereas specialists in a discipline or domain over-emphasise a singular way of understanding. Dragonfly Thinking uses structured analytic techniques and novel frameworks, and leverages the power of AI to provide more holistic analyses of complex policy, business and even personal problems.”
How does it work?
“Our AI tool analyses situations in more comprehensive ways, allowing decisions to be made with greater awareness. We’ve designed the tool to assist people in thinking, instead of telling them what to think. At every stage, the human user is a co-creator with the generative AI, which takes the user’s typed prompts and returns a range of possible solutions. Topics people have put into our tool range from ‘What are the effects of AI on lawyers in firms?’ to ‘Should a 43-year-old jiujitsu fighter train to compete in the world championships?’ and ‘Should I do online dating?’.”
How did you get it off the ground?
“Miranda and I are professors at the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University (ANU). Our research areas are very different but we’ve been close friends for years and we’re interested in understanding multiple perspectives and navigating complex environments. I developed the Risk, Reward and Resilience (RRR) Framework – which sits at the heart of our product – as a response to colliding economic, security and technology interests. Policy-makers saw the value of the framework but I noticed that some struggled to apply it on their own.
We realised we could leverage generative AI to create tools to enable users to ‘see with dragonfly eyes’ at speed and scale, improving decision-making. The idea to create a startup came from Professor Genevieve Bell (now ANU’s vice chancellor), who spent 20 years in Silicon Valley and thought our prototype was the best use she had seen of generative AI.”
How did you convince investors?
“We’ve bootstrapped our company for now, given the interest we are seeing from governments and businesses. We were fortunate to be selected for the CSIRO ON Accelerate 8 program and the Defence Trailblazer accelerator. In early 2024, we received an ICON grant from the Canberra Innovation Network that helped kick-start our AI tool development. In June, we won the inaugural Australia’s AI Sprint award, which brings $300,000 in R&D support.”
What’s next?
“In April, we led a workshop at Harvard for senior executives from major companies – including Blackstone, Thermofisher Scientific, AIG, Citizens Bank, Vanguard, BlackRock, eBay, Cummings, Wayfair, Bridgewater, Maersk and IAC. We’re planning another workshop there later this year. We started developing our AI platform with a tool based on the RRR framework and will integrate more tools and techniques. We’re now selling software licences and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources is working towards pilots of our tool across several federal government departments. We see a huge opportunity to scale globally.”
