Phoenix Rising: AI-Powered Talent Discovery Takes Flight

This article originally appeared on PeoplePerHour.

Remember 2008? While the world was reeling from the financial crisis, we launched PeoplePerHour, throwing thousands a lifeline through online freelance work. Fast forward to 2018, and we shook things up again with TalentDesk.io, giving global businesses the power to manage freelancers at scale.

Now, it's 2024, and we're not just evolving – we're revolutionizing.

Today, we’re the TalentDesk Group: a group of technology businesses that exist to advance the freelance ecosystem, and grow the market of individuals and businesses participating in this huge and growing segment of the global economy by constantly innovating to provide best-in-class products for freelancers and companies to collaborate.

Our latest product is Phoenix, our AI-powered assistant that reimagines how SMEs connect with talent via PeoplePerHour. Faster. Smarter. More secure. It's the freelance marketplace, supercharged by AI.

Homepage of phoenix ai

In a world obsessed with scale, we've stayed nimble. We've launched niche products, we've taken risks, and yes, some ideas didn't pan out. We had to lose some battles to stay in the war. But that's the beauty of innovation – even our "failures" laid the groundwork for future success.

Take SuperTasker, our attempt to "Uberize" work five years ago. The product didn't fly, but the team behind it? They went on to create our freelancer management system TalentDesk.io, now serving multinationals worldwide. As I told my team then, "Even if the product doesn't take off, we won't have failed."

This multi-product, innovation-first approach meant we were perfectly-positioned to take advantage of the technological paradigm shift we’re currently living through. AI is a ‘gift’ handed to us by the tech ecosystem. We're standing on the shoulders of giants, leveraging billions in AI investment and the work of some of the brightest minds in the world, to reinvent our corner of the market in ways we never dreamed possible. Frankly, it's the least we should do in return.

As I like to say, “Luck favors the prepared”, and at TalentDesk Group, we've been preparing for this moment for 15 years.

Phoenix is more than a product launch. It's a statement. It's us declaring that the future of freelance talent discovery is here, and it's powered by AI.

Phoenix productivity screenshot