Tonia Samsonova

Tonia Samsonova is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Exactly.ai, an innovative AI platform designed for artists, illustrators, and designers. Originally from Russia, Samsonova first made her mark as a broadcast journalist, TV anchor, and online editor before moving to London in 2013 as a foreign correspondent for Echo of Moscow.

Building on her media career, she founded The Question in 2014, a news and opinion platform, which she successfully sold to Yandex—often referred to as "the Russian Google"—five years later.

Driven by a deep passion for art and a desire to tackle the intellectual property challenges posed by AI-generated content, Samsonova launched Exactly.ai in 2022. The platform enables creatives to train their own personal AI models based on their unique artistic styles while retaining full ownership of both the images produced and the underlying model. This innovation empowers artists to scale their work efficiently and generate additional income through a marketplace where they can monetise their AI-generated creations.

Under her leadership, Exactly.ai has gained traction among illustrators, photographers, and designers, with thousands of models trained by users. The company is positioning itself as a fair alternative to large AI platforms that scrape artistic styles without consent.

Samsonova currently resides in London with her four children.