About us

Our Story

For over a decade, Sama has been committed to making an impact — on AI development and the world at large. Learn how we’re raising standards for both machine learning and global working conditions.

To accelerate and advance computer vision AI development by providing the most accurate, scalable, and ethical data pipeline.

To provide data scientists, ML engineers, and data operations teams with an indispensable, integrated platform for AI data preparation, labeling, and collection.

Our Values: The Sama Way

We are driven to surpass company objectives. We win together, we fail together and we learn together. We each make decisions on what’s best for Sama and our mission.

We focus on what moves the needle and double down quickly on what’s impactful. We are solutions oriented and driven by the end result. We demand excellence from each other.

We trust our teammates to make the right decisions, empowering them with both information and ownership. We believe in the power of authentic feedback. Transparency and trust accelerate us towards our shared goals.

We see our own success through our customers’ outcomes. We approach every situation with a customer-first mindset.

We embody Ethical AI. We believe that purpose and profit go hand in hand and we operate our business this way. We are proud to be a triple bottom line business.

“Don’t underestimate the ripple effect of what you do. These kinds of actions have toppled empires.”

Leila Janah, Founder, Sama

About Our Founder

Leila Janah, our late founder, firmly believed that providing meaningful, dignified, living wage work is the best way to permanently lift people out of poverty. She founded Sama in 2008 driven by the belief that “talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not.”

Using cutting edge social enterprise models, she oversaw the development of version one of our platform, SamaHub, expanded our operations to three continents, and helped lift over 60,000 people out of poverty.

Learn more about Leila’s legacy at the Leila Janah Foundation.

The first AI company to
receive B Corp Certification

The Ethical AI Supply Chain: Purpose-Built for Impact

Our platform provides a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for all your AI training data development requirements.

Proven, Verifiable Impact

We rigorously and continuously assess our impact on our workforce and communities. In addition to our internal assessments, our impact has been proven in a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) led by MIT and Innovations for Poverty Action, which found that our model results in significantly higher long term employment rates and earnings.

Read the MIT RCT Paper

60K

Lives impacted.

20

Businesses funded through the Leila Janah Foundation.

3.6x

Average increase in earnings when joining Sama.