Meet Anya, the founder of Aqta, an Irish company tackling one of the biggest challenges emerging alongside AI: trust.
After moving from Australia to Dublin and deciding to stay, Anya became increasingly interested in what happens when AI moves beyond generating answers and starts making decisions that have real consequences for people. Her question was simple but important: if AI is making decisions about loans, diagnoses or insurance claims, how can we independently check what it was allowed to do and why?
That question led to Aqta, a company building technology that makes AI actions checkable. Rather than asking people to simply trust AI, Aqta creates signed records of what an AI system was permitted to do and what it actually decided, giving others a way to independently verify those actions.
In this interview, Anya shares the thinking behind Aqta, why deliberately trying to break your own systems matters, how she approaches setbacks, and the Dublin spot she considers a hidden gem.
So tell us about yourself and what led you to set up in business ?
I’m Anya. I moved to Dublin from Australia and never left. What led me to start Aqta was watching AI begin to make real decisions that affect people’s lives while there was still no simple way to check, afterwards, what it had been allowed to do. You were just expected to trust it. So I built the thing I wished existed, something you can examine rather than something you take on faith
What are the types of services that you you provide and what problems that you solve for your customers?
Aqta makes AI actions checkable. As AI starts making real decisions, who gets a loan, who gets a diagnosis, who gets a claim, we produce a signed record of what it was allowed to do and what it decided which anyone can check independently. That one idea runs through everything we build. We don’t slow AI down. We’re the reason it can be used where the stakes are highest
What makes your company’s approach different from what’s traditionally been done in your field?
We build two independent checkers for the same evidence, designed to agree on every record. This week, someone outside the company found a case where they didn’t, an emoji was sorted differently in two programming languages so one checker accepted a signed record while the other rejected it. Nothing was forged; two honest programmes simply disagreed. We fixed it and published the fix within a day. It reinforced something we believe strongly: agreement isn’t something you assume. It’s something you actively try to break
How do you stay inspired and motivated?
I get energy from people in the room making something, not just talking about it. A walk helps. Reading something that has nothing to do with AI helps. And then I come back and do the next concrete hour of work. Inspiration is cheap, finishing is the discipline
What one piece of advice would you share with others on how to overcome business setbacks?
Name the setback in one sentence then shrink the next move until you can do it today. “Everything is broken” keeps you stuck. “This buyer said no because X” gives you a job. Ego wants a new company overnight; progress wants the next small step
Share your hidden gem about Dublin
The Bank on College Green. The room is unapologetically grand, old banking hall and all but the order stays simple, oysters and a Guinness. That mix is very Dublin to me. A bit of theatre then something you can actually enjoy
