Nigerian artificial intelligence startup Decide has unveiled DAX-1, a specialised AI model designed to make spreadsheet editing faster and cheaper as the company moves to reduce its reliance on third-party AI models.
The startup, which develops AI tools for spreadsheet automation, said DAX-1 was built specifically to handle repetitive spreadsheet tasks, including fixing formulas, removing duplicate entries, correcting errors and formatting workbooks.
Before developing the model, Decide relied on a combination of artificial intelligence models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google to power different parts of its platform. The company is now bringing some of those capabilities in-house with DAX-1, which it says is designed specifically for spreadsheet-related tasks.
Abiodun Adetona, co-founder of Decide, said the development is a shift in the company’s approach to building its AI products.
“DAX-1 represents a shift in how we are building Decide. We don’t want to simply wrap general-purpose AI models and depend on them for every spreadsheet operation,” Adetona told Business Post.
He said the company believes repetitive and high-volume spreadsheet operations can be handled more accurately and at a lower cost by AI models trained for specific tasks.
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According to Adetona, DAX-1 was post-trained specifically for spreadsheet editing and achieved 91.7 per cent accuracy on the company’s benchmark.
He added that the model ran five times faster and cost 97 per cent less to operate than Anthropic’s Fable 5, making it potentially more suitable for spreadsheet automation at scale.
Decide said the results show that specialised AI models can provide a more cost-efficient option for specific business tasks than larger general-purpose models.
The company said reducing the cost of running AI is important to its plans to expand spreadsheet automation, particularly as usage increases and the cost of relying on third-party models becomes more significant.
DAX-1 is the first specialised AI model developed by Decide and represents the startup’s move towards building more of its own artificial intelligence technology.
About the Author
Cecilia Attah is a tech analyst with a degree from Benue State University. She covers tech news and startups at TechRegard with a focus on how technology is transforming Africa and shaping the global landscape.
