{"id":123173,"date":"2025-02-18T11:52:44","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T11:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/?p=123173"},"modified":"2025-02-18T11:52:45","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T11:52:45","slug":"malt-leverages-ai-to-match-talent-and-ensure-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/2025\/02\/18\/malt-leverages-ai-to-match-talent-and-ensure-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Malt leverages AI to match talent and ensure security"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Claire Lebarz, Chief Technology Officer at Malt, a leading freelance consulting marketplace in Europe and the Middle East, explains how the company harnesses AI and data analytics to more effectively match freelance talent with the right opportunities. She also explores the role of technology in ensuring the scalability and security of Malt’s platform.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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How does Malt leverage Artificial Intelligence and data analytics to match freelance talent with the right opportunities more effectively<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malt has been using AI since 2019 to power our recommendation system, finding the best freelancers for a given project among more than 800,000 profiles on the platform. Recently, we\u2019ve built new features powered by language models to help any company describe their need with a few words, long paragraphs, or even a PDF of a job description and translate that into a talent search, identifying the right competencies for the job, extracting the relevant information and generating the description for the freelancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It not only helps clients save time, but it has also increased the attractiveness of projects for clients assisted with AI, who are more likely to get positive responses from highly sought-after talents and start their projects faster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malt employs state-of-the-art AI models to enhance talent matching, moving beyond simple keyword searches to deep learning-powered recommendations. By utilising large language models, Malt ensures that freelancers with relevant skills – even if they don\u2019t use exact matching terms – are surfaced in search results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are building our own small language models powered by the millions of projects and profiles we\u2019ve assessed over the last decade. This enables us to have models that are more performant and keep a low carbon footprint for our solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Language models are very powerful for finding the right talent since they remove the burden of typing the exact keyword by having a sense of semantic similarity. For instance, before, a client looking for a \u2018data scientist\u2019 may miss \u2018Machine Learning\u2019 profiles; now they only need to say, \u201cI need someone to build an internal AI assistant for my company.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What role does technology play in ensuring the scalability and security of Malt’s platform as the freelance talent market continues to grow across Europe?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malt’s platform is designed with scalability in mind, leveraging modern cloud infrastructure and AI-driven automation to support its expansion across multiple European markets. As we enter new countries, compliance with local laws and regulations is our first step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also spend significant time on the scalability and robustness of our invoicing and payment platform so that companies can efficiently manage their freelance workforce, ensuring that even as demand grows, hiring and managing projects with hundreds to thousands of freelancers remains fast and seamless for any company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Security is paramount to any project for us, and no client data is sent to third-party AI models, for instance. Additionally, encrypted storage and internal AI models minimise risks associated with handling sensitive business information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With AI rapidly evolving, how do you balance automation with the human touch when it comes to user experience on your platform?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We believe the future of work is deeply human and think AI is an opportunity to augment our freelancers and clients with efficiency gains, such as streamlining talent discovery and reducing administrative burdens. A client remains responsible for choosing who to work with, and so are freelancers. For us, it is not only an efficiency opportunity but also an opportunity to remove historical biases in recruitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Combining the best of humans and technology is our ambition and journey. We are working closely with academic partners on these questions and have received EU funding for that work. It is also important for us to give the choice of AI. The team is actively designing solutions that give freelancers control over how automation interacts with their profiles and client communications, ensuring a balanced and chosen experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are some of the biggest technological challenges you\u2019ve faced while building and maintaining a platform of Malt\u2019s size and scale, and how did you overcome them?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest challenges has been ensuring the effectiveness of AI search across diverse European markets. While AI search has shown strong performance in France, engagement in other markets like Belgium and Spain has been more challenging due to smaller freelancer pools and localised user behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, building custom AI models instead of solely relying on third-party Generative AI has required significant investment in data infrastructure and Machine Learning expertise. Malt has tackled these challenges by continuously iterating on AI-powered search and recommendation models – with over 20 updates since its launch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you approach data privacy and compliance, particularly with regulations like GDPR, while handling such a vast volume of user data?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malt is fully GDPR-compliant, ensuring strict data protection standards. No freelancer or client data is sent to external Generative AI models – Malt only uses large language models for tasks like project description generation but never for personal or confidential data processing. All client and freelancer data remains securely stored on encrypted servers within Europe. With the upcoming EU AI Act, Malt is proactively preparing to meet compliance standards, even though regulatory enforcement mechanisms are still evolving. The company is also actively educating clients on AI compliance and leading industry discussions on responsible AI practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essentially, Malt is run on distinct principles to ensure the responsible, ethical development of its AI tools: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.     AI to assist and augment humans, not replace them.<\/strong> AI serves as a support tool, enhancing decision-making processes without taking over the critical human element of judgment and personal connection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.    Transparent recommendations.<\/strong> When AI provides guidance, Malt ensures it doesn\u2019t feel like a black box. Managers need to know that the information is coming from AI and why AI is presenting that information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.     Responsible use of AI.<\/strong> We aim to use the right technology for the right task, minimising unnecessary resource use and carbon footprint. We respect data privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.     Using AI is a choice.<\/strong> Malt users will always have the ability to choose to operate things manually and not use AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What emerging technologies or trends in AI and data science are you most excited about, and how do you see them shaping the future of freelance marketplaces?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m particularly excited about the democratisation of AI and its accessibility for our community of freelancers. They are, interestingly, investing significantly in learning and upskilling, and they tend to be at the forefront of new technologies. We have observed a strong increase in AI talent over the past two years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Malt, it is interesting to think about how we can become even more the \u2018agent of freelancers.\u2019 AI agents are evolving fast, and given our depth and breadth, we could further represent freelancers in online interactions with clients when companies have staffing needs and facilitate scheduling, pre-screening questions, etc. For freelancers, AI should limit the burden of putting all the right keywords on a profile and instead have them focus on describing their experience and what they accomplished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As CTO and Chief Data and AI Officer, how do you foster a culture of innovation within your teams to stay ahead of the competition in the freelance talent space?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For us, innovation is not about competition, it\u2019s about bringing the most value to freelancers and to companies. It\u2019s about constantly asking ourselves what we could do better and which problems we\u2019ve not solved yet. It starts with the people we hire. We not only look for the strongest technical talent but also the ones with a growth mindset, curious and passionate about the future of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we grow as a company, it\u2019s about staying agile, empowering teams to do their best work and bringing external expertise or partnerships to accelerate our journey. We\u2019re living a talent revolution alongside an AI revolution; I think that being clear about why we\u2019re doing what we do and our principles ensure the right governance and space for such a culture to foster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claire Lebarz, Chief Technology Officer at Malt, a leading freelance consulting marketplace in Europe and the Middle East, explains how the company harnesses AI and data analytics to more effectively match freelance talent with the right opportunities. She also explores the role of technology in ensuring the scalability and security of Malt’s platform. How does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":123175,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18793,9,7359,93],"tags":[158,5406,21910,21911],"class_list":["post-123173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-france","category-industry-expert","category-top-stories","tag-ai","tag-analytics","tag-claire-lebarz","tag-malt"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123176,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123173\/revisions\/123176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}