Comparison

Indika AI vs Scale AI: which data partner fits your team?

Ownership, data use, expert supply, certifications and pilots, side by side, and when each one is the better choice.

Updated 6 November 2026 · Indika AI editorial team

Disclosure: Indika AI publishes this guide and is one of the companies in it. Facts about other companies come from their own websites or published news, linked under each entry, as of 6 November 2026. Check the current details with each vendor before you decide.

Scale AI is the best-known name in AI training data. Since Meta took a 49% stake in June 2025, many teams have been looking at a second vendor, or a different one. This page compares Indika and Scale on the questions buyers ask most. Facts about Scale come from Scale's own site and the news reports linked below.

How we compared

Ownership and independence: who owns the vendor and whether an owner builds competing models
Data use: whether your data can train anything of the vendor's
Expert supply: where the people doing your work come from
Security: certifications each company states
Testing: how you can try the vendor before committing

Side by side (as stated by each company or in linked news, November 2026)
	Indika AI	Scale AI
Ownership	Independently owned	Meta holds a 49% non-voting stake (June 2025)
Competes with your models?	No	Ask, if you compete with Meta
Uses your data to train its own models?	No	Ask for contract terms
People doing the work	60K+ vetted annotators and experts	Outlier and Remotasks contributor platforms
Certifications stated	ISO 27001, ISO 9001, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR	SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2022, FedRAMP High, DoD IL4
Also sells	Data infrastructure and monitoring	AI applications for enterprise and government
Leadership in 2026	—	Francis deSouza CEO since August 2026
Try before you commit	No-cost pilot	Ask

When Scale AI is the better choice

You need FedRAMP High or DoD IL4 for US government work.
You run very large, long-running programs and are already integrated with Scale's platform.
Meta's stake is not a concern for your business.

When Indika is the better choice

You want a vendor with no owner that builds competing models, and no use of your data for its own models.
Your data needs domain experts: clinical, legal, financial or engineering review.
You want delivery from India, in Indian languages, or a second vendor to benchmark quality and price.
You want to test on your own data first, with a no-cost pilot.

What changed at Scale in 2025–26

June 2025: Meta paid $14.3B for 49% of Scale, without voting rights, and founder Alexandr Wang moved to Meta. OpenAI said it had been winding down its work with Scale. Source
January 2026: Scale said its data business is profitable and that 2025 brought over $1B in new business. Source
August 2026: Francis deSouza, formerly CEO of Illumina, became Scale's CEO. Source
October 2026: Scale opened an office in Dubai. Source

Scale certifications from scale.com/security. Indika facts from indikaai.com.

How to decide

Run the same pilot with both: your data, your guidelines, your gold set and a fixed decision date. Our six checks for a second RLHF vendor work for any shortlist.

Frequently asked questions

Is Indika AI an alternative to Scale AI?

Yes, for annotation, RLHF, evaluation and red-teaming, especially where you need domain experts, an independent vendor or delivery from India. Scale remains the stronger fit for US government programs that need FedRAMP High.