Yesterday, Jack and Iona hosted our first webinar of 2026, titled ‘Polaris View - Enabling Better, Faster, Human-Led Decisions’. It marked a significant milestone for ClearSky, as we shared the first completed project to emerge from our Future Labs initiative.
Future Labs was established by our CEO, Darren, as a place for internal innovation and professional growth. We wanted to create a tangible space where our engineering and design teams could breathe life into concepts, transforming them into robust prototypes and products. While the implementation of Artificial Intelligence is a dominant theme in the current business landscape, the challenge of integrating it into the actual craft of engineering is equally profound. To truly drive innovation, teams require more than just a mandate; they need the time, support, and psychological safety to explore what's possible.
Polaris View is the first project we have guided through this entire lifecycle. At its core, it is designed to help professionals in highly regulated industries make better, faster, and (crucially) human-led decisions.
In our work with clients, we consistently encounter a fundamental tension: the immense potential of AI versus the valid concerns regarding its autonomy. Much of the public conversation focuses on the fear of replacement, the risk of error, or the ethical implications of using algorithms in high-stakes environments. This is precisely why our technical and design teams prioritised the 'human in the loop' philosophy when developing Polaris View. It is not an autonomous actor - it is a co-pilot.
During the webinar, we demonstrated this through the lens of business loan applications. This specific use case was chosen because it represents a perfect storm of complexity. Underwriters must gather, collate, and review vast amounts of sensitive, private data sourced from disparate locations. Accuracy is paramount, and the stakes for the applicant and the lender are incredibly high.
Traditionally, this process is a manual marathon, often taking hours or days to reach a conclusion. By implementing Polaris View, we can reduce that timeframe to minutes, but we do so without removing the expert from the cockpit. The tool handles the heavy lifting of data organisation and risk identification, allowing the underwriter to focus on the nuanced, qualitative judgments that only a human can make.
Security remained a core throughout development. We engineered Polaris View with end-to-end data protection to ensure it meets the rigorous standards of finance, healthcare, and energy sectors. We understand that for our clients to innovate, they must first feel secure.
At ClearSky, we’re not interested in speculating about the future. Our goal is to build it, to be the #1 Tech Enabler for business in Scotland. Future Labs and Polaris View represent our commitment to doing the hard work of testing and development so that our partners can grow their businesses with genuine confidence.
If you were unable to join the live session, you can watch the full recording of the webinar here.