About Probative
Probative is a research firm that records what AI answer engines say about companies and projects in public disputes, and the sources the engines cite. It was founded by Alastair Macartney, a former British Army Major who ran the UK Ministry of Defence’s Defence Courier Service. It’s based near Seattle, Washington.
1. Why Probative exists
Investors, reporters, regulators and local officials can now ask AI engines about companies in the news. An analyst reading a short report can ask ChatGPT about the company, and so can a reporter getting background before a call or a county planner reading up on a mine. None of those answers is visible to the company, its lawyers or its agencies. A false account spreads fast in a contested place, and putting it right once people have repeated it takes far more work than saying it did. Probative was set up to find out what the engines say and to help companies correct them where they’re wrong.
2. Our founder
Alastair Macartney spent 23 years in the British Army, starting as a Driver in the Territorial Army in 1992. He went to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1995 and was commissioned a year later.
From 2007 to 2009 he was Director of the Defence Courier Service, the UK Ministry of Defence’s secure courier network for classified material in Britain and around the world. It ran at a zero error rate during his tenure.
He served in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in 2011.
He retired from the Army as a Major in 2015 and moved into technology. He is also Head of Growth Systems at Strategyc, where his work is on how search engines and AI answers choose which sources to cite. Strategyc does no work on Probative engagements.
He founded Probative after seeing companies in public disputes have their story told by AI engines, in answers the companies never saw. He wanted a careful, dated record of what the engines said, checked against the public record, and that’s what Probative makes.
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