As businesses grapple with exponentially growing data volumes, keeping operational costs in check is paramount. For our client, a top provider of premium real estate data and imagery, their sophisticated image matching algorithms were becoming prohibitively expensive as their database exploded. Optimization with AI brought the break-through that they were looking for.
Despite years of optimization, their legacy algorithm for identifying matching real estate listings across millions of photos daily was computationally intense. This led to soaring costs that threatened to undermine their business model.
Our mission was clear: Deliver a radically more cost-efficient solution without sacrificing accuracy and quality—the pillars of their brand’s value proposition.
Bottomline
- 70-80% reduction in operating costs for our client’s core image processing workloads
- Cascading approach applied in optimization with AI
- AI brought break-through where conventional optimization approaches hit a ceiling
Conventional optimization approaches hit a ceiling with their finely tuned algorithm. Thinking outside the box, we implemented a game-changing, multi-stage solution.
We incorporated CLIP, an advanced neural network, to inexpensively pre-filter image comparisons. CLIP generated compact vector representations for each image upfront. Then, when comparing images, our system first analyzed the highly efficient CLIP vectors. Only if this inexpensive first pass couldn’t confidently identify a mismatch would we invoke the computationally expensive legacy algorithm.
Meticulously calibrating the parameters of this cascading system paid off tremendously. A remarkable 90% of image comparisons no longer required the costly legacy algorithm, while the overall error rate increased by just 1%—an eminently acceptable trade-off given the dramatic cost savings.
The bottom line? We delivered a 70-80% reduction in operating costs for our client’s core image processing workloads, even accounting for the incremental CLIP processing overhead.
This powerful optimization with AI will solidify our client’s leadership in premium real estate data, giving them a lasting competitive edge. As their business scales, they can onboard new data sources seamlessly without worrying about exponential cost growth undermining margins.
This project showcases the immense potential of AI to drive operational excellence and profitability for data-centric companies across industries.