DistinctAI draws on sales for $70,000 CHEO donation

ARNPRIOR – DistinctAI co-founder and chief executive officer, Arnprior’s Chris Pierce proves there is humanity behind the Artificial Intelligence movement as his company makes a $70,000 donation to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO).

DistinctAI is an Ottawa-based company using AI technology to enhance creative software such as CorelDRAW, Adobe and Affinity to help users create custom imagery.

Pierce, who started the company with his brother Derek and Mark Igbinedion, sat down with West Carleton Online a week ago (May 23) to talk about the donation DistinctAI made to CHEO May 23, and the company that is on the leading edge of visual AI software.

“We were able to donate $70,000 to the Children’s Miracle network,” Pierce said. “We ran the campaign in the United States, but they funnelled it back to CHEO, which was awesome.”

DistinctAI has three software products, Vector FX, Vision FX 2.0 and HDR FX, which are used by graphic designers to help improve their workflow. In some cases their software is bundled with other graphic design software such is the case with the popular CorelDRAW.

The fundraising campaign was a way to give back.

“I was in CHEO,” Pierce said. “My brother has three boys, who knows how many times they’ve been there. There’s a bit of a perception with AI. We’re an AI company and a lot of people think it’s not human, but there are humans behind the project.”

For the campaign, DistinctAI partnered with Corel and a percentage of the proceeds of sales were used to make the donation.

Pierce says DistinctAI’s software is used to assist graphic designers, not replace them.

“We’re geared at the professional level,” he said. “Pre-processing and post-processing to put out a high-level product. Our whole thing is we don’t want to replace the creatives but expedite their process. We’re ethical AI – no deep fakes.”

Pierce says the company’s software actually identifies and blocks deep fakes.

“We build software that is another tool in the creative toolbelt,” Pierce said.

Another distinct trend DistinctAI bucks, is the new rental process of software. If you are a buyer of Microsoft Office or Adobe Creative Cloud, you know you don’t buy the product, you rent it. In the case of Microsoft Office you pay an annual fee. For Adobe, it’s a monthly fee. DistinctAI goes back to ownership.

“No subscriptions, you own it,” Pierce said. “There’s no cloud, everything is local.”

Both Chris and Derek were longtime Corel employees before branching out on their own.

“Just a couple of Valley boys running a big tech company,” Pierce said.

Derek worked at Corel for 19 years and then “he brought me in.”

Chris worked at Corel for 13 years.

“We saw an opportunity with AI,” Pierce said. “We spent a lifetime building software for someone else and decided to do it for ourselves.”

The brothers and their third partner started DistinctAI in 2018, “but it really kicked off this year,” Pierce said. “We really started to make a go of it.”

The company partnered with Corel (to name one).

“We build software, and they offer it to their client base,” Pierce said. “We also build technology for their software.”

DistinctAI also works with AMD, Microsoft and HP, to name a few.

Piere says while AI is exploding in the public eye these days, especially with the advent of ChatGPT, the technology is still very new.

“It really is still in its infancy,” Pierce said. “Everyone talks about it, few know how to use it. But everyone knows what a prompt is. What we’re trying to do is make AI really easy to use and take the prompts away. The notion AI is taking jobs away is not true. On the commercial side, it’s not going to replace graphic designers, it’s going to make their job more efficient. We believe in artist intelligence: empowering creators with innovative tools that accelerate imagination-to-creation using text-based prompts and powerful adjustment settings that keep the crafter in control.”

For more information in DistinctAI, visit their website here.