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Mercor vs Scale AI
October 03, 2025
Mercor ($133.6M)
Mercor is an AI-based hiring platform designed to improve the recruitment process for both job seekers and companies. It's focused on top-tier experts for AI model training and evaluation.
Scale AI ($15.9B)
Scale AI provides a data-oriented platform that assists in the development of AI applications.
Mercor and Scale AI are both AI startups that help companies training AI models find experts in specific fields to evaluate and quality-assure their models. On the other hand they help experts find remote job. Their clients include IT giants developing large language models (OpenAI, Meta, Google, X, Microsoft) as well as research labs.
But Mercor (founded in 2023) is a recruiting service for finding domain experts for AI training tasks. Its killer-feature is matching candidates to projects. To achieve this, Mercor develops its own AI model that helps to analyse resumes, interview transcripts and candidates' social profiles (on Facebook, GitHub, etc.). Mercor charges a recruitment commission from clients plus a small subscription fee. Mercor is also developing its own methods for evaluating performance in knowledge-based work (for example, the APEX benchmark).
Scale AI (2016) also seeks domain experts, but exclusively for itself. This company specializes in data annotation and labeling for third-party AI projects. Scale also has its own SEAL (Safety, Evaluations, Alignment Lab) research lab for evaluating and aligning AI models. At the exit it produces analytical reports on LLM performance, including quality metrics, safety and weaknesses. Scale is also developing its own online platform with annotation tools, serving as a work-console for remote experts.
But Mercor (founded in 2023) is a recruiting service for finding domain experts for AI training tasks. Its killer-feature is matching candidates to projects. To achieve this, Mercor develops its own AI model that helps to analyse resumes, interview transcripts and candidates' social profiles (on Facebook, GitHub, etc.). Mercor charges a recruitment commission from clients plus a small subscription fee. Mercor is also developing its own methods for evaluating performance in knowledge-based work (for example, the APEX benchmark).
Scale AI (2016) also seeks domain experts, but exclusively for itself. This company specializes in data annotation and labeling for third-party AI projects. Scale also has its own SEAL (Safety, Evaluations, Alignment Lab) research lab for evaluating and aligning AI models. At the exit it produces analytical reports on LLM performance, including quality metrics, safety and weaknesses. Scale is also developing its own online platform with annotation tools, serving as a work-console for remote experts.
