[Biz Watch] Yoo Seung-jae, CEO of Persona AI

Receives CES 2025 Innovation Award… Also Preparing for IPO

In an interview with Biz Watch, Yoo Seung-jae, CEO of Persona AI, explained the background of the company’s founding and future business plans, saying, “We will expand the AICC business and also pursue an initial public offering (IPO).” /Graphic=Biz Watch

‘Persona AI’ is a startup that received an innovation award at ‘CES,’ the world’s largest IT exhibition held in Las Vegas, USA in January of this year. However, there was a story about the company almost failing right before its establishment in 2017.

Before Yoo Seung-jae founded Persona AI, he was involved in a cyber attack while working in another IT business. It was not a mistake by the company or a development issue. It was because he used a web hosting company that had been hit by ransomware. Ransomware is a compound word of ‘ransom’ and ‘software.’ It is a malicious program that takes a computer user’s files hostage and demands bitcoin or money. In 2017, ransomware attacks spread and became widely known as damages occurred in over 100 countries.

All data, files, etc. were destined to disappear. CEO Yoo Seung-jae exchanged all his assets for Bitcoin. The hacker’s offer was that if he sent Bitcoin, he would restore the data to its original state.

The requested Bitcoin was reportedly worth over 1 billion won. CEO Yoo said, “There was no guarantee that the data would be restored if I sent Bitcoin, so I sent a small amount and waited to see how it would respond,” and laughed, saying, “After the deposit, not only was the recovery successful, but the after-sales service was also good, so I was able to start the business in earnest.”

If he had kept the 1 billion won worth of Bitcoin he lost 8 years ago, CEO Yoo might have become a famous ‘new rich man’ not only in Korea but also around the world. However, this led CEO Yoo to prepare a new business after much thought. It was a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) business.

Persona AI emerged with this heartbreaking story. The company has grown rapidly, receiving recognition for its domestic competitiveness in the GEN AICC (generative artificial intelligence contact center) field. We recently met with CEO Yoo to ask about the AI ​​business and future plans.

Persona AI was established in 2017 after going through the R&D stage from 2015 to 2016. Its core business model is GEN AICC. It applied various AI technologies such as voice engines, voice recognition, and sentence analysis to provide solutions that enable 24-hour consultations through AI chatbots and callbots without waiting for a consultant.

CEO Yoo said, "At that time, the conversational AI field was receiving attention worldwide, and chatbots and callbots were seen as services that could reach users first." He added, "I thought that such services could answer most of the user's questions, and if technologically advanced, they could develop into consultation-related information recommendations for call center consultants, and even report work."

Persona AI attracted attention in the market in 2021 when it launched services targeting domestic and foreign companies by introducing its own AI solutions, such as chatbots and callbots, necessary for AICC business.

Financial institutions, such as KB Financial Group and Hanwha General Insurance, which are considered relatively picky, took action. It provided customized AICC solutions and subscription services to customers by utilizing technology based on a lightweight natural language processing engine that implements optimal performance even with limited data. The Korean conversation engine applied to Persona AI's AI chatbot 'Sonar Chat' recorded a 100% Korean language recognition rate in the Korea Language Accreditation Scheme (KOLAS). Another differentiating point is the solution (KGPT) that enhances security to safely utilize ChatGPT.

SK Telecom, the largest mobile carrier in Korea, even made a direct investment. In 2023, SK Telecom will invest 5 billion won (9.2% stake) to become the third largest shareholder of Persona AI. At the time, SK Telecom introduced Persona AI as "a company with the technology and product competitiveness that developed its own Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine and introduced a subscription-based AICC service for the first time in Korea," and "it is receiving attention in the industry for its competitiveness at the highest level in the AICC field."

Persona AI also joined the 'K-AI Alliance' launched by SK Telecom and is continuing its cooperative relationship. CEO Yoo said, "Thanks to SK Telecom's help, we had the opportunity to introduce our company on global stages such as CES and MWC, and we also developed joint products," and "In particular, since our recent participation in CES, we have been receiving a lot of inquiries about cooperation from overseas companies." In fact, SK Telecom held an IR pitching day with 'K-AI Alliance' member companies at CES in January and provided Persona AI with a presentation opportunity.

Persona AI CEO Yoo Seung-jae being interviewed by Bizwatch. / Photo = Bizwatch

It received an innovation award at CES this year. The service that applied the self-developed sLLM (small language model) and generative AI technology was recognized. It is capable of inferring the user's speech intention and providing hyper-personalized customized education and real-time communication, and above all, it is noteworthy that it operates without an internet connection thanks to the on-device form equipped with a lightweight AI engine. CEO Yoo said, "During CES, there was a temporary internet outage in the Las Vegas area, but our service operated without any problems, which made it a hot topic at the exhibition site."

He expressed a positive view of the Chinese AI service 'Deepseek' that recently took the world by storm. CEO Yoo said, "I see it as a good wave in that it showed excellent quality with a small model," and "We are also researching and developing this kind of inference model." However, he does not view Deepseek or other AI services as competitors. He said, "Rather than competitors, we only think about customers," and "We plan to create and deliver the AI ​​that customers need."

Persona AI plans to strengthen related capabilities by accelerating the advancement of AICC services as well as the expansion of generative AI services. In particular, the goal is to strengthen corporate services such as the Korean-style GPT service 'KGPT' without hallucinations and the corporate generative AI platform 'ZenStation'. In the case of KGPT, it supports flexible linkage with global LLMs such as Naver's LLM (large-scale language model) HyperClova X as well as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Furthermore, it plans to expand the scope of its business by installing solutions on various hardware devices and actively explore entering the global market. CEO Yoo said, "The plan to cooperate with Chinese robot companies is already in progress," and "We have been creating AI source technologies and selling solutions and subscription products, and we plan to further expand this and pursue an initial public offering (IPO) within the year."