Digital security company STR uses AI to address national security issues. Its STR/info kit platform uses AI, data science, and data conditioning to create decision-making algorithms that are designed to work with, rather than replace, human intelligence. One application of its AI technology is in clustering facial recognition with analysis of scraped data, which STR uses in concert with government agencies to identify perpetrators of online child exploitation.
The company was acquired by CoStar Group, Inc., the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics, and online marketplaces, in October 2019. The acquisition comprises the entire STR portfolio, including STR, Inc., headquartered in Hendersonville, Tennessee; STR Global Ltd., the company’s international business headquartered in London; Hotel News Now, the company’s digital media arm based in Cleveland; and the Hotel Data Conference, hosted each year in Nashville since 2009. The hotel industry has been the cornerstone of STR’s business from its founding. Today, the company processes, analyzes and reports on data from 66,000 hotels representing 8.9 million rooms in 180 countries.