ines.io

Hi, I’m Ines.

I’m a software developer working on Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing technologies, and the co-founder and CEO of Explosion. We’re the makers of spaCy, one of the leading open-source libraries for Natural Language Processing in Python, and Prodigy, a modern annotation tool for creating training data for machine learning models.

I believe in programming until four in the morning in my pyjamas instead of getting up early to attend conferences about productivity. I believe in making the best possible products instead of launching just for the sake of it because some startup advice blog told me so. I believe in rational planning, logical consequences and bullshit-free hard work instead of “following my dreams”. In short, I believe in doing things.

I grew up on the internet and started coding and designing websites at 11. After completing my degree in Communication Science, Media Studies and Linguistics, I spent four years working in media and sales, before founding Explosion. I live in Berlin and I occasionally speak at conferences and make videos. In 2020, I became a Fellow of the Python Software Foundation.

AI/ML for the rest of us

Evolution of spaCy

Pipeline Conversations

Creating Tools that Spark Joy

Applied NLP Thinking: How to Translate Problems into Solutions

We’ve been running Explosion for about five years now, which has given us a lot of insights into what NLP looks like in industry contexts. In this blog post, I discuss some of the biggest challenges for applied NLP and translating business problems into ML solutions.

python-podcast.de

Natural Language Processing mit spaCy

spaCy v3.0

spaCy v3.0 is a huge release! It features new transformer-based pipelines that get spaCy’s accuracy right up to the current state-of-the-art, and a new workflow system to help you take projects from prototype to production.

Rasa Chats podcast

Building Resilient NLP Applications

DevJourney podcast

Episode #122: Ines Montani brought linguistic and computers together

Prodigy v1.10: Dependencies, relations, audio, video & more

PyCon Colombia

Speaker Interview

Karo and I talked about getting into tech and machine learning, and what's next for spaCy and our other tools.

Practical AI podcast

Modern NLP with spaCy

Zündfunk Netzkongress

Künstliche Intelligenz beyond the hype

PyCon India keynote

Let Them Write Code

spaCy and Explosion: past, present and future

Frag deinen Kühlschrank: Doku über künstliche Intelligenz

ARD-alpha

Frag deinen Kühlschrank: Doku über künstliche Intelligenz

Increment Magazine

The process: Transforming spaCy’s docs

Building Prodigy: Our new tool for efficient machine teaching

Prodigy is a project very dear to my heart and seeing it come to life has been one of the most exciting experiences as a software developer so far.

The wired brain: How not to talk about an AI-powered future

The way we talk about AI is a mess. It starts with the most obvious, the imagery.

Announcing Explosion AI

Today, we launched the website for our new company, Explosion AI. Explosion is a digital studio specialising in Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing.

I fell for self-help so you don’t have to

I hate to admit it, but during my late teenage years and the beginning of my adult life, I massively fell for self-help blogs.

Half hour of labeling power: Can we beat GPT?

PyData NYC Workshop

Half hour of labeling power: Can we beat GPT?

Big PyData BBQ

Panel: Large Language Models

with Alejandro Saucedo (Zalando, Institute for Ethical AI & ML), Alina Lehnhard (Cerence), Michael Gerz (Heidelberg University), Alexander CS Hendorf (Königsweg)

PyData London keynote

Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production

The Interhacktives Podcast

Modular Journalism: The new way to find stories?

How the Guardian uses AI to analyse articles

JournalismAI Festival

How the Guardian uses AI to analyse articles

New Languages for NLP keynote

Advanced NLP for Diverse Languages

Anecdotes from 11 Role Models in Machine Learning

Towards Data Science

Anecdotes from 11 Role Models in Machine Learning

Interview: Ines Montani & Sebastián Ramírez

PyFest

Interview: Ines Montani & Sebastián Ramírez

spaCy v3: Design concepts explained

Episode #300: Building a data science startup

TalkPython podcast

Episode #300: Building a data science startup

Building industrial strength NLP pipelines

Gradient Dissent podcast

Building industrial strength NLP pipelines

Python Bytes podcast

Episode #191: Live from the Manning Python Conference

Chai Time Data Science Interview

Training an NER model with Prodigy and Transfer Learning

SourceSort

Complementing a 15k star open source NLP library with commercial developer tools

kulturnews

“Ines Montani bringt Computern die menschliche Sprache bei. Aber warum wird künstliche Intelligenz trotzdem nicht intelligent?”

“Wir setzen zu viele Hoffnungen in künstliche Intelligenz”

Bayern 2

“Wir setzen zu viele Hoffnungen in künstliche Intelligenz”

spaCy IRL 2019: 2 days of NLP in Berlin

We were pleased to invite the spaCy community and other folks working on Natural Language Processing to Berlin this summer for a small and intimate event.

FAQ #1: Tips & tricks for NLP, annotation and training

Custom pipelines and extensions for spaCy v2.0

As spaCy v2.0 gets closer, we've been excited to implement the last outstanding features. One of the best improvements is a new system for adding pipeline components and registering extensions to the Doc, Span and Token objects.

Training an insults classifier with Prodigy

Story time: How I started coding

I've seen a couple of these posts pop up over the past year or so, and I've always enjoyed reading other people's stories. So here's mine.

How Front-End Development Can Improve Artificial Intelligence

While researchers rightly focus on better algorithms, there are a lot more things to be done. In this post I'll discuss three ways in which front-end development can improve AI technology.

Explosion, NLP, Generative AI, Entrepreneurship

Learning From Machine Learning

Explosion, NLP, Generative AI, Entrepreneurship

Teaching Python Podcast

NLP with Ines Montani

Raspberry Pi, Python and cats: my first foray into embedded development

I love shitty robots. And I love Python, and cats.

Outerbounds Fireside Chat

NLP: From Prototype to Production

Console DevTools Podcast

Data Science with Ines Montani

Introducing spaCy Tailored Pipelines

Explosion is pleased to announce a new development services offering, spaCy Tailored Pipelines. We’ll build you a custom natural language processing pipeline, delivered in a standardized format using spaCy’s projects system.

We’ve sold 5% of Explosion

Since founding Explosion we've run the company as a profitable business. We now want to release more things and expand the team, without compromising our direction or stability. We’re pleased to announce that we’ve found an investment that ticks all the boxes.

Building Industrial-Strength NLP Applications

Snorkel ScienceTalks

Building Industrial-Strength NLP Applications

spaCy v3: State-of-the-art NLP from Prototype to Production

TalkPython podcast

Episode #297: Python year in review 2020

spaCy v3.0: Bringing State-of-the-art NLP from Prototype to Production

Designing Practical NLP Solutions

Image captioning with Prodigy and PyTorch

PyCon Colombia keynote

The Future of NLP in Python

Bayerischer Rundfunk

Backstage Talk: Zündfunk Netzkongress

Interview by Sayak Paul

In this interview, I talk about how I got into programming, how we stay up to date with the latest developments in our field and the ideas behind my PyCon India keynote “Let Them Write Code”.

spaCy meets Transformers

Huge transformer models like BERT, GPT-2 and XLNet have set a new standard for accuracy on almost every NLP leaderboard. You can now use these models in spaCy via a new interface library.

Advanced NLP with spaCy

In this free interactive online course you’ll learn how to use spaCy to build advanced natural language understanding systems, using both rule-based and machine learning approaches.

TalkPython podcast

Building a software business

In this episode, Michael Kennedy and I talk about building a sustainable software business on open source and Python.

How to Ignore Most Startup Advice and Build a Decent Software Business

EuroPython keynote

How to Ignore Most Startup Advice and Build a Decent Software Business

Reflections on running spaCy: commercial open-source NLP

As more and more people and companies are getting involved with open-source software, balancing the expectations of an open community and a traditional provider vs. consumer relationship is becoming increasingly difficult.

Supervised learning is great — it’s data collection that’s broken

The dissatisfaction with supervised learning is misplaced. Instead of waiting for the unsupervised messiah to arrive, we need to fix the way we're collecting and reusing human knowledge.

5 things I learned from working in print

For four years, I worked for a popular print magazine.

2024-03-04	Keynote TBA PyData Tel Aviv · Tel Aviv (Israel)
2023-11-29	Incorporating LLMs into practical NLP workflows PyBerlin · Berlin (Germany)
2023-11-01	Tutorial: Half hour of labeling power: Can we beat GPT? PyData NYC · New York (United States)
2023-09-21	Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production Big PyData BBQ · Heidelberg (Germany)
2023-09-16	Tutorial: There are no bad labels, only happy accidents PyData Amsterdam · Amsterdam (Netherlands)
2023-07-19	Keynote Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production EuroPython · Prague (Czech Republic)
2023-06-03	Keynote Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production PyData London · London (United Kingdom)
2023-05-24	Welchen Einfluss hat generative KI auf die politische Meinungsbildung? FZI Spot On: ChatGPT & Co. · Berlin (Germany)
2023-04-17	Incorporating LLMs into practical NLP workflows PyCon DE & PyData Berlin · Berlin (Germany)
2022-12-08	How the Guardian uses AI to analyse articles JournalismAI Festival · digital
2022-05-12	Keynote Solutions for Advanced NLP for Diverse Languages New Languages for NLP · Princeton (United States)
2021-06-17	Applied NLP Thinking L3-AI · digital
2021-06-10	Keynote What does “real-world NLP” look like and how can students get ready for it? Teaching NLP, NAACL 2021 · digital
2020-10-22	Keynote spaCy v3.0: Bringing State-of-the-art NLP from Prototype to Production Global AI Live · digital
2020-06-18	Designing Practical NLP Solutions L3-AI · digital
2020-02-08	Keynote The Future of NLP in Python PyCon Colombia · Medellín (Colombia)
2019-11-09	Künstliche Intelligenz beyond the hype Zündfunk Netzkongress · Munich (Germany)
2019-10-13	Keynote Let Them Write Code PyCon India · Chennai (India)
2019-10-09	spaCy and the future of multi-lingual NLP META Forum Award Ceremony · Brussels (Belgium)
2019-07-06	spaCy and Explosion: past, present and future spaCy IRL · Berlin (Germany)
2019-05-09	Practical NLP transfer learning with spaCy and Prodigy InfoShare · Gdańsk (Poland)
2019-01-28	Practical transfer learning for NLP with spaCy and Prodigy Applied Machine Learning Days · Lausanne (Switzerland)
2018-11-22	The AI Revolution will not be Monopolized Hack Talks · Helsinki (Finland)
2018-07-26	Keynote How to Ignore Most Startup Advice and Build a Decent Software Business EuroPython · Edinburgh (Scotland)
2018-05-05	Teaching AI about Human Knowledge PyDays · Vienna (Austria)
2018-04-14	Increasing Data Science Productivity: spaCy & Prodigy San Francisco (United States)
2018-04-12	Rapid NLP Annotation Through Binary Decisions, Pattern Bootstrapping and Active Learning TomTom Founders Festival · Charlottesville (United States)

Hi, I’m Ines.

I’ve been featured in…

spaCy 101 Zine Book

Natural Language Processing and Python

Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production

Incorporating LLMs into practical NLP workflows

AI/ML for the rest of us

Evolution of spaCy

Creating Tools that Spark Joy

Applied NLP Thinking: How to Translate Problems into Solutions

Natural Language Processing mit spaCy

spaCy v3.0

Building Resilient NLP Applications

Episode #122: Ines Montani brought linguistic and computers together

Prodigy v1.10: Dependencies, relations, audio, video & more

Speaker Interview

Modern NLP with spaCy

Künstliche Intelligenz beyond the hype

Let Them Write Code

spaCy and Explosion: past, present and future

Frag deinen Kühlschrank: Doku über künstliche Intelligenz

The process: Transforming spaCy’s docs

Building Prodigy: Our new tool for efficient machine teaching

The wired brain: How not to talk about an AI-powered future

Announcing Explosion AI

I fell for self-help so you don’t have to

Half hour of labeling power: Can we beat GPT?

Panel: Large Language Models

Large Language Models: From Prototype to Production

Modular Journalism: The new way to find stories?

How the Guardian uses AI to analyse articles

Advanced NLP for Diverse Languages

Anecdotes from 11 Role Models in Machine Learning

Interview: Ines Montani & Sebastián Ramírez

spaCy v3: Design concepts explained

Episode #300: Building a data science startup

Building industrial strength NLP pipelines

Episode #191: Live from the Manning Python Conference

Chai Time Data Science Interview

Training an NER model with Prodigy and Transfer Learning

Complementing a 15k star open source NLP library with commercial developer tools

“Wir setzen zu viele Hoffnungen in künstliche Intelligenz”

spaCy IRL 2019: 2 days of NLP in Berlin

FAQ #1: Tips & tricks for NLP, annotation and training

Custom pipelines and extensions for spaCy v2.0

Training an insults classifier with Prodigy

Story time: How I started coding

How Front-End Development Can Improve Artificial Intelligence

Explosion, NLP, Generative AI, Entrepreneurship

NLP with Ines Montani

Raspberry Pi, Python and cats: my first foray into embedded development

NLP: From Prototype to Production

Data Science with Ines Montani

Introducing spaCy Tailored Pipelines

We’ve sold 5% of Explosion

Building Industrial-Strength NLP Applications

spaCy v3: State-of-the-art NLP from Prototype to Production

Episode #297: Python year in review 2020

spaCy v3.0: Bringing State-of-the-art NLP from Prototype to Production

Designing Practical NLP Solutions

Image captioning with Prodigy and PyTorch

The Future of NLP in Python

Backstage Talk: Zündfunk Netzkongress

Interview by Sayak Paul

spaCy meets Transformers

Advanced NLP with spaCy

Building a software business

How to Ignore Most Startup Advice and Build a Decent Software Business

Reflections on running spaCy: commercial open-source NLP

Supervised learning is great — it’s data collection that’s broken

5 things I learned from working in print