Combining Human and AI Intelligence: How We're Shaping the Future of R&D with AI

In this episode of the Honeypot podcast, our CEO Vincent shares one of the most critical insights we've learned at Findest: the key to successful R&D is ensuring you're solving the right problem. Watch or read on for some choice quotes and insights…

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The Hidden Cost of Wrong Turns in R&D

"Companies often spend years - and millions in budget - pursuing solutions that ultimately don't work," Vincent explains. "Then they come to us and ask what other technologies could have done the job. The frustrating part? Those alternatives were there all along."

This scenario plays out across industries:

• Teams spend months or years on a chosen solution
• Budgets expand as challenges mount
• Progress stalls or hits technological limits
• Meanwhile, better solutions existed but weren't discovered early enough

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Why Traditional R&D Approaches Fall Short

In the podcast, Vincent highlights a crucial insight about how R&D teams typically work:

"Engineers are trained to think in solutions. When they have a challenge, they immediately go for something they know might work - maybe they've seen it at a conference or tried it before."

This natural instinct to jump to familiar solutions creates two major risks:

1. Missing potentially better approaches from other industries or domains
2. Investing significant resources before knowing all available options

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The Real Cost? Your Competitors Finding Better Solutions First

The stakes are high. As Vincent points out in the conversation:

"If your competitor finds a better solution and patents it first, you're too late. That's how you lose the innovation game."

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Our Approach: Combining Human Expertise with AI

At Findest, we're not trying to replace R&D teams with AI. Instead, we're solving a fundamental challenge: how to give R&D experts the complete picture before they commit to a solution path.

We combine:

• Deep semantic understanding of the technical challenge
• Access to comprehensive scientific and patent databases
• AI that thinks in terms of functions and jobs-to-be-done
• The irreplaceable expertise of R&D professionals

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Our Impact

The numbers Vincent shares in the podcast tell our story:

• We've completed over 2,500 technology scouting projects
• We achieve a 60% success rate in leading to innovations
• We operate across 13 countries
• We're saving companies years of misdirected R&D effort

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The Key to Success? Ask the Right Questions First

Vincent emphasises our core belief:

"It's not about the scouting part anymore. It's about knowing what to scout."

This gets to the heart of what makes our approach different. We help R&D teams:

1. Understand the core function they need to achieve
2. Map all possible solutions before committing resources
3. Make informed decisions about which path to pursue

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What This Means for Your R&D Team

If you're leading R&D initiatives, ask yourself:

• How confident are you that you've explored all viable solutions?
• What would it cost if you were pursuing the wrong path?
• How much time could you save by knowing all your options upfront?

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To ensure your R&D efforts are focused on the right challenges, book a 30-minute discovery call with our team to learn how we can help you identify and evaluate all possible solutions before committing resources.

Watch the full podcast above to hear more insights from Vincent on the future of R&D and technology scouting.

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