Artificial Intelligence in Practice

33Entrupy: Using Artificial Intelligence To Combat The $450 Billion Counterfeit Industry

Launched in 2016, Entrupy uses artificial intelligence (AI) to combat counterfeit goods. The company provides its platform as a service to brands that want to minimize revenue lost to counterfeiters, as well as resellers who want to ensure they aren't inadvertently breaking the law by selling fake goods.

CEO and co-founder Vidyuth Srinivasan said he settled on counterfeiting as the focus of his machine learning development, following a battery failure on an apparently new and genuine battery while motorbiking across the country.¹

What Problem Is Artificial Intelligence Helping To Solve?

Aside from dodgy batteries, sales of counterfeit goods total close to half a trillion dollars per year globally.² As well as revenue lost to the brands whose IP is being stolen, this dilutes brand identities – something fashion brands in particular are more than willing to spend money to protect.

Counterfeiting also eats into the business of genuine resellers and wholesalers and sometimes leaves them out of pocket when stock purchased in good faith turns out to be fake. A widely used style of fraud known as return fraud involves dishonestly returning counterfeit items to retailers in place of genuine ones. This is only possible because many retailers don't have the time or technological means to check every item that comes back to them.

How Is Artificial Intelligence Used In Practice?

Entrupy has developed ...