Butterfly Data unveils AI tool to boost online trust scores

Butterfly Data has developed an artificial intelligence tool designed to evaluate and manage the credibility of online information as concerns over misinformation continue to rise.

The company, based in the United Kingdom, has built a scalable system that leverages AI to assess and highlight trusted content. This development comes at a time when online platforms are inundated with conflicting reports, conspiracy theories, and altered information, generating public uncertainty around news and digital discourse.

The new solution was recognised with four awards at the 2024 SAS Hackathon, including the EMEA Regional Award and two Global Special Awards for Channel Ready and Trustworthy AI. Butterfly Data will display the technology at SAS Innovate 2025 in Orlando, Florida, alongside technology developers from various countries to discuss how AI can enhance public trust and support factual discussions in media, government, and other sectors.

At the centre of Butterfly Data's tool is an artificial intelligence process that combines natural language processing (NLP), classification algorithms, and large language models (LLMs) to measure how trustworthy open-source information is. The tool provides a credibility score for digital content and explains its reasoning through a generative LLM. This feature is intended to offer users increased transparency and context, aiming to boost their confidence in the system's findings. The solution offers a user interface with a dashboard for analysts, researchers, and decision-makers to detect misinformation risks and inform their choices.

Will Hauwert, Senior Manager at Butterfly Data, said, "Misinformation is a growing challenge. What makes our solution different is its ability to not only detect unreliable information, but to explain the 'why' behind that assessment, to help close the critical gap between raw data and real understanding."

The technology is built on SAS Viya, a platform for advanced analytics and machine learning. While Butterfly Data's AI tool is not yet commercially available, it has been designed for scalability, auditability, and practical use across sectors most impacted by misinformation, including public health, education, government, defence, and journalism.

With a focus on channel-readiness, the solution is intended for deployment by both public and private sector clients interested in protecting the integrity of their data and ensuring lasting trust in the sources they utilise.

In addition to product features, Butterfly Data's participation in SAS Innovate is described by the company as a reaffirmation of its commitment to ethical and responsible applications of artificial intelligence in addressing social issues. The company positions its solution as a response to increasingly complex types of misinformation and draws attention to the availability of technological tools to address these challenges, provided they are used responsibly.