Is our data safe with a vendor that serves rival labs?

Ownership is the first thing to check. Meta has held 49% of Scale AI since June 2025, which matters to any lab that competes with Meta. Surge AI says it has never taken outside funding, so no lab owns part of it. Ask every vendor for its owners, its SOC 2 report and its incident history before a pilot.

Is DataAnnotation.tech owned by Surge AI?

DataAnnotation.tech is reported to be a Surge AI subsidiary, including by TIME in 2024, but its own website does not name Surge. We show this as reported rather than confirmed.

Is Surge AI bigger than Scale AI?

On revenue we cannot say from public sources, because Scale AI has no reported run rate in our sources. Surge AI's 2024 revenue is reported at $1B to $1.2B, and it is profitable. Scale is the more valuable company on paper, at above $29B in its own figure after Meta's investment.

Has Surge AI raised outside funding?

No. Surge AI says it has never raised outside funding, and Reuters reported it as profitable with more than $1B in 2024 revenue. Having no outside investors also means no AI lab owns part of it.

Surge AI review: score, facts and incidents

Our verdict

Surge AI reported $1B to $1.2B in 2024 revenue without outside funding, which makes it the largest independent, founder-owned vendor in this ranking. It publishes almost nothing on vetting, quality systems, security or pricing, so we cannot score it on most criteria yet. Ask for SOC 2 evidence and agreement rates in any pilot.

By Lead analyst (to be named) placeholder · Reviewed by Reviewing editor (to be named) · Updated 14 Oct 2026

The facts, with receipts

Every row links to its source.

Surge AI facts
Fact	Value and source
Reported revenue	Over $1B in 2024, and profitable Sources differ: Surge 2024 revenue reported as $1B to $1.2B: Reuters says over $1B, Forbes says $1.2B. [1] Reuters (via AOL) ·
Reported revenue	$1.2B in 2024 Sources differ: Surge 2024 revenue reported as $1B to $1.2B: Reuters says over $1B, Forbes says $1.2B. [2] Forbes ·
Outside funding	None; Surge says it has never raised outside funding [3] Forbes · company's own claim ·
Worker platform	DataAnnotation.tech is reportedly a Surge AI subsidiary DataAnnotation's own site does not name Surge (checked 2026-10-14). [4] TIME ·
Surge AI's use	Surge AI buys company archives to build reinforcement learning environments [5] MIT Technology Review ·

How we rated them

The rating for AI teams is a weighted average of the parts below, using only what is published. See how we rate.

Not enough public information to draw this chart yet. We only chart what a source supports.

Expert depth and vetting (25%)No data
No public evidence yet.
Quality systems (20%)No data
No public evidence yet.
Security and neutrality (20%)No data
No public evidence yet.
Scale and speed (20%)9.0
Reported 2024 revenue above $1B.¹
Transparency (15%)No data
No public evidence yet.

Provenance

Where the work comes from and who stands behind it. Anything we cannot source says so.

Where the workforce is located: Not disclosed
How experts are vetted: Not disclosed
Annotation platform or tooling: Not disclosed
Subcontracting: Not disclosed
Security certifications: Not disclosed
Ownership: No outside investors, per Surge³

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

2024 revenue reported as $1B to $1.2B, and profitable^1,2
No outside investors, so no lab owns a stake³

Weaknesses

Publishes almost nothing on vetting, quality or security¹
Its worker platform does not name Surge on its own site⁴

Surge AI for other readers

As a place to work

Hires workers through DataAnnotation.tech, reportedly its subsidiary.

Best for: Writers and specialists who apply through DataAnnotation

Open

Reader reviews

What people who worked with Surge AI say

Our score

n/a/10

From sourced facts and the published rubric.

Reader average

None yet

0 published reviews. Shown beside our score, never blended into it.

Rating spread

Summary of reviews · not generated yet

A written summary appears once enough reviews are published. It will quote both praise and complaints.

No reviews yet. Be the first.

If you have sold data to, hired, or worked for Surge AI, your review helps the next person decide.

Our rules: every review is checked before it is published, negative reviews are never hidden, companies can reply but cannot remove a review, and reviewers must disclose any connection to the company. Reviews imported from other sites are labelled and never counted.

FAQ

Surge AI: questions, answered

Ownership is the first thing to check. Meta has held 49% of Scale AI since June 2025, which matters to any lab that competes with Meta. Surge AI says it has never taken outside funding, so no lab owns part of it. Ask every vendor for its owners, its SOC 2 report and its incident history before a pilot.^6,3
DataAnnotation.tech is reported to be a Surge AI subsidiary, including by TIME in 2024, but its own website does not name Surge. We show this as reported rather than confirmed.⁴
On revenue we cannot say from public sources, because Scale AI has no reported run rate in our sources. Surge AI's 2024 revenue is reported at $1B to $1.2B, and it is profitable. Scale is the more valuable company on paper, at above $29B in its own figure after Meta's investment.^1,2,7
No. Surge AI says it has never raised outside funding, and Reuters reported it as profitable with more than $1B in 2024 revenue. Having no outside investors also means no AI lab owns part of it.^3,1

Change log

14 Oct 2026First published.

Sources (7)

1.Reuters (via AOL), published 1 Jul 2025. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
2.Forbes. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
3.Forbes. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
4.TIME, published 2 Apr 2024. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
5.MIT Technology Review, published 13 Oct 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
6.TechCrunch, published 13 Jun 2025. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
7.Scale AI blog, published 12 Jun 2025. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.