{{short description|American data annotation company}} {{Use American English|date=September 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2025}} {{Infobox company | name = Surge Labs Inc. | trade_name = Surge AI | logo = | type = Private | industry = Information technology | foundation = {{start date and age|2020}} | founders = Edwin Chen | location = San Francisco, California, United States | key_people = Edwin Chen (CEO)<ref name="NYMag" /> | revenue = $1.2 billion (2024)<ref name="Bloomberg" /> | owners = | num_employees = 110 (2025)<ref name="TheInfo" /> | subsid = Get Hybrid<br/>Task Up<br/>Data Annotation<ref name="NYMag" /> | homepage = {{URL|https://www.surgehq.ai}} }}
'''Surge Labs Inc.''', doing business as '''Surge AI''', is an American multinational data annotation company based in San Francisco, California. Surge focuses on reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), RL environments, and annotating language data. Customers include OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Anthropic.<ref name="NYMag">{{Cite web |last=Dzieza |first=Josh |date=2023-06-20 |title=Inside the AI Factory |url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-humans-technology-business-factory.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230620123320/https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-humans-technology-business-factory.html |archive-date=2023-06-20 |access-date=2025-08-25 |website=New York |language=en}}</ref> The company has been described as likely being one of the most successful data labeling companies in the world.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Blum |first=Sam |date=2025-07-02 |title=Bootstrapped to $1 Billion: Surge AI CEO Edwin Chen on How He Did It |url=https://www.inc.com/sam-blum/bootstrapped-to-1-billion-surge-ai-ceo-edwin-chen-on-how-he-did-it/91207937 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250725140922/https://www.inc.com/sam-blum/bootstrapped-to-1-billion-surge-ai-ceo-edwin-chen-on-how-he-did-it/91207937 |archive-date=2025-07-25 |access-date=2025-08-25 |website=Inc.}}</ref>
== History == Edwin Chen founded Surge AI in 2020, inspired by dissatisfaction with the quality of crowdsourced data labeling.<ref name="NYMag" /> As of June 2025, Surge had been bootstrapped solely by Chen, with no previous external funding.<ref name="TheInfo">{{Cite web |last=Palazzolo |first=Stephanie |last2=Weinberg |first2=Cory |date=2025-06-19 |title=The Little-Known Startup That Has Surged Past Scale AI—Without Any Investors |url=https://www.theinformation.com/articles/little-known-startup-surged-past-scale-ai-without-investors |archive-url=https://archive.today/20250809080039/https://www.theinformation.com/articles/little-known-startup-surged-past-scale-ai-without-investors |archive-date=2025-08-09 |access-date=2025-08-25 |website=The Information |language=en}}</ref>
Early projects had focused on search, recommendation engines, and content moderation. For data labeling, they developed a platform to match annotators to their expertise. These annotators reviewed the responses by generative AI models, including chatbots and text-to-image models, improving the model outputs by sharing information reflecting the annotators' expertise.<ref name=":0" />
In 2025, the company worked with about 1 million annotators.<ref name="Business Insider"> {{Cite web |last=Rollet |first=Charles |date=2025-09-25 |title=AI training companies are raising billions to get humans to teach chatbots. Here are the startups cashing in. |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-training-companies-startups-2025-9 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251012124818/https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-training-companies-startups-2025-9 |archive-date=2025-10-12 |access-date=2025-11-19 |website=Business Insider}}</ref> Surge has never raised outside investment but in July 2025, Surge was in talks with investors from Andreessen Horowitz, Warburg Pincus and TPG Inc.<ref name="Inc">{{Cite web |last=Conrad |first=Jennifer |date=2025-06-20 |title=Surge AI, the Hot Tech Startup You’ve Probably Never Heard of, Is Already Outpacing Rivals |url=https://www.inc.com/jennifer-conrad/surge-ai-edwin-chen-scale-ai-meta-alexandr-wang/91204563 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250723182916/https://www.inc.com/jennifer-conrad/surge-ai-edwin-chen-scale-ai-meta-alexandr-wang/91204563 |archive-date=2025-07-23 |access-date=2025-11-19 |website=Inc. (magazine)}}</ref><ref name="Bloomberg">{{Cite web |last=Metz |first=Rachel |date=2025-07-30 |title=Scale Rival Surge AI in Talks for Funding at $25 Billion Value |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-30/scale-rival-surge-ai-in-talks-for-funding-at-25-billion-value |archive-url=https://archive.today/20250804125730/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-30/scale-rival-surge-ai-in-talks-for-funding-at-25-billion-value |archive-date=2025-08-04 |access-date=2025-08-25 |website=Bloomberg News}}</ref> Its valuation has ranged from $15 billion to $25 billion.<ref name="Bloomberg" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Vinn |first=Milana |last2=Hu |first2=Krystal |date=2025-07-01 |title=Exclusive: Scale AI's bigger rival Surge AI seeks up to $1 billion capital raise, sources say |url=https://www.reuters.com/business/scale-ais-bigger-rival-surge-ai-seeks-up-1-billion-capital-raise-sources-say-2025-07-01/ |archive-url=https://archive.today/20250701163610/https://www.reuters.com/business/scale-ais-bigger-rival-surge-ai-seeks-up-1-billion-capital-raise-sources-say-2025-07-01/ |archive-date=2025-07-01 |access-date=2025-08-25 |work=Reuters |language=en}}</ref>
== Controversies == ''The Verge'' and ''New York Magazine'' reported in 2023 that Surge AI appeared to own multiple separate platforms for work, including '''Get Hybrid''', '''Task Up''', and '''Data Annotation'''.<ref name="NYMag" /> The Data Annotation platform has been criticized for its lack of transparency regarding its ownership<ref name=":3">{{Cite news |last=Castaldo |first=Joe |date=2023-09-16 |title=Meet the gig workers making AI models smarter |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-ai-data-gig-workers/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230919194301/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-ai-data-gig-workers/ |archive-date=2023-09-19 |access-date=2025-08-25 |work=The Globe and Mail |language=en-CA}}</ref> and unexplained annotator account cancellations.<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Henshall |first=Will |date=2024-04-02 |title=Side Hustle or Scam? What to Know About Data Annotation Work |url=https://time.com/6962608/data-annotation-legit-tech-jobs-ai/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250721210747/https://time.com/6962608/data-annotation-legit-tech-jobs-ai/ |archive-date=2025-07-21 |access-date=2025-08-25 |website=Time}}</ref> In May 2025, Surge AI faced a class action lawsuit that the company "deliberately" misclassified its data annotators as independent contractors, denying them employee benefits and improperly withholding wages.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Hussain |first=Suhauna |date=2025-05-21 |title=Surge AI is latest San Francisco startup accused of misclassifying its workers |url=https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-05-21/surge-ai-is-latest-san-francisco-start-up-to-face-lawsuit-for-allegedly-misclassifying-data-labeling-workers |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250521215057/https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-05-21/surge-ai-is-latest-san-francisco-start-up-to-face-lawsuit-for-allegedly-misclassifying-data-labeling-workers |archive-date=2025-05-21 |access-date=2025-08-25 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref>
In July 2025, two documents from Surge AI had been leaked, one on model training and safety guidelines,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Blum |first=Sam |date=2025-07-15 |title=Surge AI Left an Internal AI Safety Doc Public. Here’s What Chatbots Can and Can’t Say |url=https://www.inc.com/sam-blum/surge-ai-left-an-internal-ai-safety-doc-public-heres-what-chatbots-can-and-cant-say/91213308 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250723182132/https://www.inc.com/sam-blum/surge-ai-left-an-internal-ai-safety-doc-public-heres-what-chatbots-can-and-cant-say/91213308 |archive-date=2025-07-23 |access-date=2025-08-25 |website=Inc.}}</ref> and another on websites that contractors training Anthropic models were and were not allowed to use.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rollet |first=Charles |date=2025-07-23 |title=A leaked list shows which websites were used to improve Anthropic's chatbot — and which ones were off-limits |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-surge-ai-leaked-list-sites-2025-7 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250726054049/https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-surge-ai-leaked-list-sites-2025-7 |archive-date=2025-07-26 |access-date=2025-08-25 |website=Business Insider |language=en-US}}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == * {{official website|https://www.surgehq.ai}} * [https://www.dataannotation.tech/ Data Annotation website]
{{Generative AI}}
Category:2020 in San Francisco Category:2020 establishments in California Category:American companies established in 2020 Category:Companies based in San Francisco Category:Technology companies based in California Category:Artificial intelligence associations