Streetbees

High-Level Overview

Streetbees is a London-based technology company specializing in AI-powered consumer insights and market research. It builds the SBX platform, an end-to-end tool that uses conversational surveys via a WhatsApp-style mobile app to collect qualitative and quantitative data—including text, photos, and videos—from a global community of over 1 million users ("bees") across 150 countries.[1][2][3] Streetbees serves brands, marketers, and organizations needing real-time understanding of consumer behaviors, attitudes, and trends, solving the limitations of traditional surveys by delivering deeper, scalable insights in as little as 48 hours through AI-optimized questioning and analysis.[1][3][5] The company has shown strong growth, capturing around 35 million conversations, winning the 2024 Innovation of the Year award for SBX, and attracting investment from firms like Atomico, while continuously expanding capabilities like photo/video capture.[2][3][5]

Origin Story

Streetbees was founded in 2015 by Tugce Bulut (CEO) and Oliver May (CCO) in London, United Kingdom.[1][2] Bulut, with a vision to revolutionize market research by capturing real-life human behaviors through mobile technology, aimed to create the world's largest databank of human insights while giving users control over their data.[2][8] The idea emerged from recognizing that standardized surveys fail to grasp complex human motivations, leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning (ML), and unstructured data like chats, photos, and videos for dynamic, real-time responses.[2] Early traction came from building a community of over 1 million active users across 150 countries, enabling fast global insights and drawing investment from Atomico for its bold approach to disrupting traditional incumbents.[2]

Core Differentiators

Streetbees stands out in the market research space through its innovative blend of AI, conversational tech, and a massive global crowd panel. Key strengths include:

• AI-Powered SBX Platform: Generates research briefs in 20 minutes, deploys adaptive conversational surveys that optimize questions in real-time for interview-like depth at survey scale, and delivers interactive dashboards with executive summaries, charts, themes, and rich media (photos/videos) within 48 hours.[1][3][5]
• Multimodal Data Capture: WhatsApp-style app collects text, photos, and videos from users' daily lives, with proprietary ML transcribing, translating, and classifying content to reveal sentiments and behaviors invisible in text alone—e.g., unboxing reactions or home inventories.[3][5]
• Global Scale and Speed: 35 million+ conversations from 1M+ users in 150 countries (87+ for rapid deployment), providing "always-on" real-time insights like opinion polling or retail intelligence at a fraction of traditional costs.[2][4]
• Hybrid Insights Engine: Combines LLMs for brief/survey customization with traditional ML for taxonomy-based analysis, ensuring qualitative richness at quantitative volumes; backed by experienced researchers for accuracy.[3][6]

These features earned SBX the 2024 Innovation of the Year award, positioning Streetbees ahead of competitors like Grips (e-commerce focus) or Behavio (ad testing).[1][3]

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Streetbees rides the wave of AI-driven transformation in market research, shifting from rigid, slow surveys to real-time, conversational intelligence powered by LLMs, NLP, and multimodal data.[2][3] This timing aligns with exploding demand for agile consumer insights amid volatile markets, e-commerce growth, and personalized branding, where traditional methods lag in capturing nuanced behaviors.[1][5] Favorable forces include widespread mobile adoption, privacy-focused data control (users retain ownership), and AI advancements enabling unstructured data analysis at scale—addressing a $80B+ industry ripe for disruption.[2][8] Streetbees influences the ecosystem by democratizing global insights for international expansion, inspiring "human intelligence" platforms, and setting benchmarks for ethical, tech-enabled research that empowers brands to adapt strategies dynamically.[2][7]

Quick Take & Future Outlook

Streetbees is poised to dominate AI-augmented market research, with plans to refine ML models for even higher accuracy in classifying images/videos and expanding its "bees" community for deeper global coverage.[3] Trends like generative AI integration, real-time analytics, and visual data will accelerate its growth, potentially capturing more of the insights market as brands prioritize in-the-moment consumer truths over legacy polling.[5] Its influence may evolve into a full "human intelligence" powerhouse, blending human crowdsourcing with advanced AI to redefine decision-making for global enterprises—cementing its role as the go-to platform for behavioral foresight in a hyper-connected world. This builds on its core mission: turning everyday moments into strategic gold.