President Donald Trump’s traiffs have underscored the expanding geopolitical threat that almost all businesses now face. As the scenario continues to shift with Trump’s unpredictable deal-making, it’s also becoming clear how challenging it is for enterprises, nonprofits, consultants, and lawyers to hold up with the rapid everyday changes.
“We are drowning in trade updates each hour of every day,” Matthew Oresman, London dealing with accomplice of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a global law firm, advised TechCrunch.
The corporation, whose customers span multinationals and excessive-net-worth individual, in addition to corporations in tech, energy, and AI, is one of the first clients for London-based startup Hence AI’s new software product, Hence Global. The product makes use of AI to assist organizations monitor geopolitical and business hazard.
The tool does two things. First, it helps corporations of any length track risk, and it advises them on actions they could take to mitigate that risk. Second, it assist services providers, like consulting and law firms, creates significant analysis about the world for their clients.
Sean West, co-founder of Hence AI (formerly Hence Technologies), stated to think about Hence Global as “an AI-powered business advisor that’s riding alongside you.” At only $1,500 per year for the base product, Hence is far more affordable than your usual consultant, argued West.
“We want to democratize get entry to to this information,” West instructed TechCrunch in an exclusive interview, noting that corporations like startups and NGOs can’t afford to call their lawyers on every occasion they have a query about exposure or spend half of a million dollars on a consulting contract.
“Big corporations recognize how to buy steeply-priced recommendation, and the richest people will always talk to the smartest people, and that they’ll pay for them,” West continued. “But most of the market can surely be served by technology.”
West earlier served as global deputy CEO of geopolitical advisory firm Eurasia Group and lately published a book, “Unruly: Fighting Back when Politics, AI, and Law Upend the Rules of Business.” His co-founder, Steve Heitkamp, is a Palantir alum with a background in political risk and counterterrorism.
Hence Global is constructed on Palantir’s Foundry and Artificial Intelligence Platform, which lets in the startup to blend different AI models to recognize, summarize, and analyze pertinent information based totally on a client’s precise needs and industry. The system pulls in data from news headlines (and only the headlines, with a link to the source, stated West), Wikipedia, Securities and Exchange Commission filings, press releases, and other public data like sanctions lists or World Bank information.
West walked me through how the product works to expose its potential effect. Customers begin with the aid of growing a persona. For the purposes of the demo, we informed the system that we were a cross-border cryptocurrency infrastructure corporation that gives stablecoin payments, crypto custody, and regulatory intelligence. We also instructed Hence Global that we wanted “a non-stop, forward looking analysis of geopolitical developments that might effect our operating environment,” and gave it a handful of topics to track.
The concept is that, every day, Hence Global will create a daily update with pertinent news and information. In the case of the fictional crypto corporation, one of the stories the software flagged was that Trump’s trade war caused market volatility that led to Bitcoin and other crypto stocks falling.
“Basically, it does the work that a mid-level analyst would have finished in my organization,” West stated. He introduced that it might’ve taken stated analyst all day to supply a memo that Hence Global churns out in a minute.
Hence Global’s every day briefing is great for corporations that want to understand their own geopolitical and business risk, however it’s also helpful for services corporations which are monitoring this information for their clients.
Crucially, when a client asks Hence Global to monitor a corporation, the system asks if that corporation is a consumer, a competitor, or a supplier, so one can reason the platform to consider the way it provides information and analyses in a differently.
“We had been determined for these kinds of tools that can synthesize [information], assist us write the client alerts, give us that huge kernel of information that we can augment and put our legal knowledge on,” Oresman state. “There’s just a fire hose of information out there. Having something like this actually gets it to a water fountain so we can actually do something beneficial with it.”
Hence Global hasn’t been live for more than more a couple of months, but Trump’s tariff scenario has already begun bringing in new clients on top of existing clients like TravelPerk, Diversifi Capital, and Three Crowns.
Rohitesh Dhawan, CEO of the International Council on Metals and Mining, instructed TechCrunch he makes use of Hence Global to monitor market sentiment and policy.
“We try to show the sector that it is possible to supply mining in a responsible way,” Dhawan stated. “But to do that, you’ve got to be really well connected to the pulse of society and what people care about and the issues which might be top of mind, and that’s why we turn to Hence as a way to assist us do that, because to the fact matters are just moving so fast in the world in general.”
Dhawan likened Hence Global to Uber Eats — a product you didn’t realize you needed until it showed up and made your life simpler. He stated that businesses in resource-based totally industries, like agriculture or oil and gas, and corporation which are distinctly regulated or highly exposed to public sentiment, along with tech startups, could advantage most from the use of Hence Global.
“This was the kind of always-on monitoring that we just weren’t doing before,” Dhawan stated. “What Hence is assisting me do as a CEO is to quickly get to the, ‘So what?’”
Hence Global is the startup’s second product after Hence Legal, a “solution for outside counsel management, matter management, and litigation management,” consistent with West. Hence AI, whose team is spread around the U.K., Rwanda, the U.S., and the Netherlands, has raised about $5.2 million to date and is actively looking to enhance more for this product from investors who align with its mission.
When asked about whether Hence AI might be open to being received by large researcher houses, consultancies, or law firms, West stated he and his team are less interested by going into-house at any one corporation.
“We’re looking to do big things,” he added. “And I suppose the big possibility here is tapping the market of people who are global, however can’t access advice. And I don’t think that necessarily is what a large corporate service provider would do with this.”
