Concept: Estonian startup Sentinel has released a solution to detect fake media content on the web. Its platform helps democratic governments, defense agencies, and enterprises stop the risk of AI-generated deepfakes with its protection technology.

Nature of Disruption: Sentinel’s detection model is based on the Defense in Depth (DiD) approach. This model utilizes a multi-layer defense consisting of a vast database of deepfakes and neural network classifiers to detect deepfakes. Users need to upload digital media through the website or API. Sentinel’s system then analyzes the AI-forgery automatically to determine if the content, whether audio, video, or image is a deepfake or not. Finally, it shows a visualization of the manipulations done.

Outlook: The reduction in time and cost involved in generating deep fake material is one explanation for the fast growth in deep fake content. With the appropriate resources, deepfakes can be made in a day and are becoming increasingly difficult to detect with the unaided eye. As a result, new companies are focusing on developing AI-based solutions to combat deepfakes. Sentinel believes that if deepfakes go unnoticed then decision-makers, citizens, and democratic processes might get manipulated leading to the loss of trust in democracies. The startup has raised $1.35mn in a seed round from investors like United Angels VC, Jaan Talinn, Taavet Hinrikus, Ragnar Sass, and Martin Henk.

This article was originally published in Verdict.co.uk