REACH

29 October 2024

Windward Ltd.

("Windward", "the Company")

Windward launches Early Detection

Groundbreaking AI-based solution uncovers critical events, including geopolitical shifts and supply chain disruptions before they surface

Windward (LON: WNWD), a leading Maritime AI company, is pleased to announce the launch of Early Detection, a groundbreaking AI-based solution that identifies anomalies at sea using Windward's proprietary data and advanced algorithms.

Early Detection, coupled with MAI Expert™, Windward's Generative AI-powered virtual analyst, equips commercial and governmental stakeholders with a competitive advantage via early identification of critical events, and delivers both the context and recommendations necessary for swift and informed action.

Representing the next major step in Windward's comprehensive AI roadmap, Early Detection has been developed in conjunction with key customers and is now fully available to all customers as an additional SaaS based licence fee, providing a potential uplift to ACV per customer. 

Ami Daniel, Co-Founder and CEO of Windward, commented:

"Intelligence is power, and those with the earliest data and insights inevitably lead the market.  Early Detection is powered by our proprietary data and selected third party data and acts like a crystal ball, eliminating the surprise and chaos around evolving trends or events, providing our customers with a significant advantage." 

"Not only does this innovative tool highlight unexpected activities at sea, but coupled with MAI Expert™, it also provides the possible context behind these anomalies and provides actions that should be taken. This empowers our public sector clients with new potential intelligence leads and our commercial clients with actionable business intelligence, allowing them to potentially be ahead of the competition, make informed decisions acting swiftly and efficiently.

Applicable across our entire customer base, Early Detection marks another major landmark in the expansion of our offering, providing further support for our growth aspirations. We're excited to bring this differentiated tool to the industry, furthering our mission to revolutionise global trade with AI."

Overview and market need

The maritime and logistics industries face significant challenges, including a lack of expert manpower, an enormous surface area to monitor, unpredictable weather, geopolitical changes, and a shortage of timely intelligence. These are examples of situations with potentially no prior data or indicators, making it hard to identify emerging risks or anomalies until they have already occurred. 

To seek to address these challenges, Early Detection analyses significant amounts of maritime data to spot irregular activities, enabling organisations to passively uncover anomalies or new trends automatically with no required user input. The capability alerts stakeholders to these global events that would otherwise potentially remain hidden, such as an increase in vessels loitering in specific locations, or a surge in ships changing their flags even before the cause is apparent.  

Early Detection utilises Windward's proprietary data enhanced with multiple open-source data streams, including news, social media, and in the future, extreme weather and refinery outages (and other data sources of relevance and importance). This enables linking anomalies with relevant external data, providing real-time insights and context as events unfold.

Coupled with MAI Expert™, Windward's Generative AI-powered virtual analyst launched in June 2024, Windward believes Early Detection equips Commercial and Governmental stakeholders with a competitive advantage with early identification of these critical events and delivers both the context and recommendations necessary for swift and informed action. 

When Early Detection identifies an anomaly, MAI Expert™ provides possible relevant, contextualised causes, such as illegal trafficking, weather changes, or economic shifts, and recommended actions. As a result, this solution enables users to understand potential underlying factors driving the unusual activities and be able to promptly respond to them, whether that be marking it as an area of interest, launching an investigation, or taking immediate action.

Designed for both Commercial and Government customers

For governments, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement, Early Detection revolutionises maritime surveillance by providing leads to analysts about activities that warrant investigation. The most complex challenge of all is finding the "unknown unknowns" - detecting and understanding threats or events that are entirely unanticipated. Early Detection highlights unusual vessel movements, new congregations of vessels, sudden changes in ship registrations, and other anomalies that could indicate security threats or illegal activities. MAI Expert™ then provides the context, such as sanctions evasion, illegal trafficking or fishing.

By providing timely, actionable intelligence, Windward believes Early Detection and MAI Expert™ will enable Government customers to focus their resources more effectively, enhancing national security and maritime law enforcement efforts.

Windward believes Commercial customers-including shippers, insurers, traders, freight forwarders, and bunkering companies-can leverage Early Detection and MAI Expert™ to proactively identify business opportunities and mitigate risks. The capability alerts users to events including sudden increases in port congestion or shifts in shipping routes, allowing users to leverage Early Detection for financial advantage. For example, if vessels begin rerouting to avoid specific areas and opt for longer, safer routes as seen during the Red Sea Crisis earlier this year, bunkering companies can strategically position services along these new paths to meet emerging demand.

By understanding these trends and anomalies, businesses can seek to optimise efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance profitability.

For more information, please contact:

About Windward

Windward (LSE:WNWD), is a leading Maritime AI™ company, providing an all-in-one platform to accelerate global trade. Windward's AI-powered decision support and exception management platform offers a 360° view of the maritime ecosystem and enables stakeholders to make real time, predictive intelligence-driven decisions to achieve business and operational readiness.

Windward's Maritime AI supports companies across industries. The company's clients range from oil supermajors, freight forwarders, and port authorities, to banks, shippers, insurers, and governmental organizations.

For more information visit: https://windward.ai/.

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