Talk to Maurice

Ask Maurice, Blacksky's AI, about Blacksky: what it does, what it has built, and how to work together.

Products

Prism – Prism is Blacksky's data platform, and with AgentOS one of its two biggest products. It takes a large, scattered body of information, from official sources, archives, feeds or an organization's own systems, and makes it…
AgentOS – AgentOS is the platform behind every Blacksky agent. An agent on AgentOS is a persona, a set of documents, and a configuration. The platform supplies everything an agent needs to work with real people: conversation…
Dewey – Dewey is Blacksky's phone agent. It answers an organization's phone number, understands what the caller needs, and answers from the organization's own documents. When a caller needs a person, Dewey hands them to one…
Black Cloud – Black Cloud is the hosting and provisioning layer beneath every Blacksky agent. Each client gets a dedicated stack: their own compute, their own phone numbers, their own memory store and their own keys. Nothing is…
GoodBrains – GoodBrains is Blacksky's model foundation: a set of language models offered through one API. An organization picks the model that fits its work, and its agents use it. The name is a nod to Bad Brains. GoodBrains sits…
Blacksky's platform and products – Blacksky sells the same platform its own AI runs on. Prism and AgentOS are the two biggest parts: Prism makes big data understandable, and AgentOS connects people to it. Each part has its own document with the details.

Who it's for

Blacksky for businesses with busy phones – Clinics, property managers, service companies, utilities and membership organizations all have the same problem: the phone rings with the same questions all day. Hours, prices you publish, how to book, what to bring…
Blacksky for government agencies – Government information is public but hard to reach. Rules, programs, eligibility, permits and records live across websites, PDFs and databases, and people call because they cannot find the answer or cannot tell which…
Blacksky for media, archives and cultural work – Archives, catalogs, podcasts, publications and collections hold decades of material that almost nobody can get through. The knowledge is there, but it is passive: you have to already know what you are looking for.
Blacksky for nonprofits and community organizations – Community organizations hold knowledge people need: how to get help, how to take part, what a program offers, what happened and why. That knowledge is usually spread across a website, documents and a few people who know…

Work

KnowGov – KnowGov, at knowgov.info, is a free, nonpartisan civic intelligence platform built by Blacksky. Its promise is in its tagline: Understand. Power. Act. It helps people understand their government, see how power actually…
Rap Almanac – Blacksky serves as the engineering partner for Rap Research Labs (RRL) on the Rap Almanac , a full-scale music intelligence platform. Blacksky designed and built the entire backend data pipeline, NLP enrichment system…
Blacksky Agent Platform – Multi-Agent AI System — Cloud-Based
Blacksky NLP – Blacksky NLP is a proprietary, open-source NLP system built as a drop-in replacement for IBM Watson NLU. Rather than paying for enterprise NLP APIs, Blacksky built a modular pipeline using best-in-class open-source…
BSM – Provisional Patent + Hardware Product Lines
U.S. Department of Transportation – Led an 11-month engagement (May 2019 - March 2020) as Senior Consultant and Lead Backend Developer, modernizing the Office of the Secretary (OST) permitting dashboard. The project combined platform migration, GIS…
USDA FSIS Translation API & Platform Modernization – Led a comprehensive 18-month modernization of the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) digital platform as Lead Architect. This federal engagement involved scaling mission-critical infrastructure that handles…
Hip-Hop Voice AI – Blacksky built a voice-cloned conversational AI that preserves the voice, personality, and cultural knowledge of a legendary hip-hop figure. The project combines RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) with voice synthesis…
Hola – Hola is a native iOS app that teaches Spanish through real conversation. Not flashcards. Not multiple choice. Adaptive AI dialogue that meets you where you are — adjusting vocabulary, speed, and complexity in real time.…
Ife – Ife is Blacksky's internal coding intelligence system - a private RAG-based assistant that provides Claude/Gemini-level guidance while keeping proprietary code secure within Blacksky's infrastructure. Ife knows…
Seth – Seth is a privacy-preserving therapy LLM currently in beta. Unlike retrieval-only systems, Seth actually learns from conversations while keeping user data private through blockchain-based anonymization. Mental health…
SlimeHive – Open-Source Swarm Intelligence Framework — Hardware + Software
Symphony – Symphony is an AI image generation tool that thinks before it paints. A two-stage "Brain and Brush" pipeline where a vision-language model interprets and enriches your idea into a detailed, cinematic prompt before any…
U.S. Department of Treasury – Led a 9-month engagement (April 2020 - November 2020) as Senior Architect, executing a multi-site consolidation initiative that migrated 6 legacy SharePoint sites to a unified Drupal 8 platform. This project modernized…
USAID Environmental Database Modernization Project – Led the complete architectural transformation of USAID's environmental compliance database as Lead Software Architect, modernizing a legacy PHP application into an enterprise-grade Drupal 10 platform. The system serves…
Veil – Veil is a privacy-first computer vision system that gives cameras the ability to see without identifying. Built for AI wearables like Meta Ray-Ban glasses, Veil automatically detects and obscures the identities of every…
The World Bank – Led a 4-month engagement (February 2019 - May 2019) as Site Architect, integrating cloud-based solutions with Drupal to enable open data publishing. The project leveraged the DKAN distribution to make World Bank data…
Maurice, first generation (2024 to 2025) – This describes the first version of Maurice. The current Maurice runs on AgentOS and Black Cloud; see the document "About Maurice" for what he is today. This history matters because it is what Blacksky learned from…
Maurice VOIP, first generation – This is the first phone bridge Blacksky built for Maurice. Its audio pipeline became the Dewey phone state that the current Maurice and every Dewey deployment run on.

Blacksky

About Blacksky – Blacksky makes big data understandable, and connects people to it. Its two biggest products do exactly that. Prism makes big data understandable. It takes large, scattered bodies of information, like public records…
About Maurice – Maurice is Blacksky's AI. He answers Blacksky's phone line and the chat on Blacksky's website. His job is to understand what a caller is working on, explain what Blacksky has built that is relevant, and when it fits…
Working with Blacksky – AI Engineering Hands-on building of production AI systems: RAG-powered chatbots and AI assistants Voice AI phone systems Computer vision and image generation pipelines Swarm robotics and IoT sensor networks Multi-agent…
Frequently Asked Questions – Blacksky makes big data understandable, and connects people to it, with its two biggest products. Prism turns large, scattered bodies of information, like public records, archives or an organization's own documents…
How an engagement with Blacksky works – Written for the questions people ask on a first call: how do we start, what happens next, how long does it take, how is it priced, who owns what.
Talking to Maurice – Maurice is Blacksky's AI. You can reach him two ways, any time of day. By phone : +1 410 816 9713 By chat : on blackskymedia.org Both are the same Maurice, reading the same Blacksky documents. On the phone he keeps…
Blacksky Project Portfolio – Blacksky LLC builds production AI systems, swarm robotics, hardware products, and enterprise platforms. Founded by Mario Moorhead, the company holds a provisional patent for biomimetic civic infrastructure and operates…
Blacksky Services – Blacksky's work, in order of what it leads with.

Blacksky Up

LLM 101 – LLM 101 is a two-week, hands-on introduction to the AI technology reshaping every industry. No coding. No prerequisites. Just clear thinking and curiosity. Students leave with a real understanding of how large language…
NLM 101 – NLM 101 is the counterpart to LLM 101. Where LLM 101 explores how AI thinks with language, NLM 101 explores how intelligence emerges without it. From ant colonies to social media feeds, from slime molds to city traffic…
Blacksky Up – Blacksky Up is Blacksky Media's community apprenticeship program — a hands-on, multi-discipline learning experience spanning Media, Technology, Business, and the Arts. It is built on the belief that talent is everywhere…

Mario

Blacksky Inc and early work (1998 – Founder-led studio. Agency, label, and cultural-sector builds alongside teaching and exhibition design.
Blacksky LLC (2024 – Independent AI engineering. Products shipped, clients served, and a live civic platform.
Contract engineering (2013 – Twenty placements across media, federal agencies, healthcare, and financial services. Drupal 7 through 10, then AI-enabled platforms.
Education (1989 – Role: BS Communications. Sectors and areas: Education, Design.
The music years (1989 – A decade as a working bassist in New York: two bands, a self-distributed album, a monthly residency, a German tour, and a Rawkus credit.
Mario Moorhead – Mario Moorhead founded Blacksky in 1998 and has been building software for 28 years. Before that he spent a decade as a working bassist in New York. He holds a BS in Communications from Parsons, an MSEd from Pace, and…
Mario Moorhead – Mario Moorhead is a Senior AI/ML Engineer and inventor with 25+ years of technology experience. He builds production AI systems — RAG platforms, voice AI assistants, swarm robotics, computer vision, and hardware…