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Breaking Down The Scale AI Acquisition and How Sama Is Different

Meta’s stake in Scale AI changes the game. See why Sama remains the trusted, independent leader in responsible, enterprise-grade AI data solutions.

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Meta recently acquired a 49% stake in Scale AI (worth over $14 billion), and Scale CEO Alexandr Wang will join Meta to head its new “superintelligence” team. This transition represents a significant shift in the field of generative AI. We thought it’d be helpful to let everyone know the meaningful differences in our technology and features. 

Sama remains the leader in purpose-built, responsible AI for the enterprise. As a certified B Corp and Public Benefit Corporation, we’ve worked for more than 15 years helping some of the largest companies in the world accelerate the development of AI and improve the computer vision and data annotation quality resulting in higher accuracy of their datasets. Sama differs from Scale and other competitors in multiple ways.

We Prioritize Data Governance.

Sama is the first company dedicated to developing responsible AI models throughout their entire lifecycle. Unlike our competitors, we prioritize a holistic approach that prioritizes data governance, ensures model development is representative and accurate, and engages human oversight and quality management. We are committed to maintaining an ethical supply chain and ensuring the fair treatment of all workers. 

We Don’t Keep Client Data.

Unlike Scale, Sama remains an independent data annotation company. We have never retained our clients' data. We are partners with our clients, prioritizing collaborative and flexible relationships that focus on their needs. 

We Don’t Require Rigid Fees and Support Freelancers. 

Scale historically had a $3 million minimum fee, which has reportedly increased to $10 million. Sama’s pricing is flexible and optimized based on ROI. While we support freelancers, we are committed to an equitable workforce: we have a stringent vetting process and carefully verify and train our resources, unlike many crowdsourcing models. 

Our Platform Offers Distinct Advantages.

  • Sama is vendor-neutral. Scale is owned by Meta, which could lead to a conflict of interest with hyperscalers.
  • Enterprise clients, including Google (Gemini, Search, ODML), Walmart, and NASA, trust Sama. Many enterprise clients may have concerns about Meta's ownership.
  • Sama has tailored taxonomies, SLAs, and co-developed workflows; Scale uses standardized, tool-centric pipelines.
  • Sama’s quality control utilizes multi-layered QA with trained teams and achieves a 99%+ acceptance rate across 10 billion data points per month; Scale has a higher customer-side QA burden.
  • Sama’s model Lifecycle Support covers the full loop: HITL, data annotation, and retraining, whereas Scale focuses on data labeling and automation.

Here’s a quick glance comparison

Sama Scale AI
Quality Control Integrated multi-tier QA; automated triggers + manual review Often requires client-side QA; quality can degrade at scale
Domain Expertise Trained, retained teams aligned to customer use case Larger contractor pool with less specialization
Partnership Model High-touch, embedded model; co-develops workflows with customers Tool-centric, transactional vendor
Data Strategy End-to-end support: model evaluation, HITL, annotation, retraining Primarily focused on data labeling + automation
Customization Flexible workflows, taxonomies, and SLAs tailored to model maturity Standardized pipelines, less customization
Customer Retention Multi-year relationships (6–10+ yrs); known for consistency Customers report issues with responsiveness and quality drift
Rework & Efficiency 70% less rework (per case study after switch from iMerit) Customers cite rework and label waste as pain points
Pricing Transparency Predictable cost models optimized for ROI, not volume Known for premium pricing; opaque pricing structures
Customer Experience Impact Labels aligned to downstream usage; proven impact on real-world models Focus on output quantity; less clarity on downstream model impact

Our Values And Commitment Are Tested. 

Sama has a proven track record of quality, including consistently reducing time to market for AI models and a multi-layered approach to data labeling that has resulted in one of the highest acceptance rates in the industry, averaging 99% per batch across 10 billion data points a month.  

Any significant change in an industry leads to questions. We will remain independent and a good choice for companies who do not want to share sensitive training data with a Meta-connected partner. 

Beyond Scale AI: Other Noteworthy Players.

It’s not just Scale that we compare against. We’re happy to share how we differ from a range of other companies in the field, including:

Kognic
Labelbox
Cloudfactory
TELUS
Appen
iMerit
DatologyAI
Flywheel.io
Roboflow
Snorkel AI
SuperAnnotate
Unstructured
Prolific

Contact us today to learn more about the unique Sama approach, how we help bring models to market 3x faster with a 99% batch acceptance rate, and how we prioritize building AI models responsibly. 

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