Dragonfly is a “real-time visual saliency tool” designed to improve websites’ and physical retailers’ visual effectiveness. It has been developed by digital and data consultancy Black Swan, in partnership with Queen Mary University of London.

The camera-based technology recreates elements of the human visual cortex to provide a heat-map of the areas within  an image that have most and least visual effect. It claims to have improved web conversions by 41% for new customers in one brand test and says the technology can help companies analyse their visual communications on- and offline in seconds.

Black Swan co-founder Hugo Amos says the technology can identify the “micro moment of truth”, the split-second it takes us to filter content in or out of our brains.

It is being trialled by brands to improve websites and retail displays and the company has worked with Pepsi, Npower and Disney. Black Swan raised £3m in its latest funding round in March and plans to expand into the US and Japan.