Satya Nadella, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Microsoft, noted during his visit to South Korea that the domestic artificial intelligence (AI) startup "wrtn" held a press conference at 10 a.m. on the 8th on the 6th floor of the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, revealing its future business plans.
Wrtn announced that it will launch a new product, "wrtn 3.0," on the 14th. The executives collectively stated that their goal is to enhance the service so that all citizens can utilize personalized AI.
CEO Lee Se-young stated, "The dream of wrtn is to evolve from generative AI into a true lifestyle AI," adding that the aim is to transform into a genuine interpersonal service. He also noted, "This year, we aim for 10 million monthly active users (MAU) and strive to be the most loved and widely used service among Koreans."
Wrtn is a startup established in 2021 by CEO Lee, who graduated from Yonsei University with a degree in library and information science. Promoting itself as a next-generation search portal based on generative AI, it has been in service since January 2023. Although it currently does not have its own AI model, it provides search portal and chatbot services applying existing development models like OpenAI's "ChatGPT," Google's "Gemini," and Anthropic's "Claude." The current scale of wrtn's monthly active users is approximately 5 million.
The company recently announced that it has secured an additional investment of 83 billion won, completing a Series B round of funding totaling 108 billion won aimed at furthering business development.
◇ "Wrtn 3.0 to be unveiled on April 14"… "We will create personalized AI for all citizens"
Wrtn revealed its "wrtn 3.0" for the first time on the 14th of this month. The company emphasized "one person, one AI" as a key slogan.
According to wrtn, the core of "wrtn 3.0," called "My AI Supporter," can learn individual user information and apply it to customized mannerisms and skins. The company also noted that emotional exchanges between users and the AI supporter will be possible. According to the company, while preparing for the new product, wrtn designed the memory performance to be 10 times greater to ensure that the AI remembers all conversations with the user.
Lee Dong-jae, the Chief Product Officer (CPO), explained, "Three innovations are key to wrtn 3.0," stating, "The EQ layer enables emotional interactions by providing each of the 50 million citizens their own AI, significant performance upgrades through large language model (LLM) orchestration, and economic benefits provided to all users beyond free services."
◇ "Aiming for a portal in the AI era"… Future goal to enter the financial industry
Wrtn hinted at the possibility of expanding its services to financial products. It claims to advocate "AI that generates money." While similar to previous apps that provided rewards, it plans to offer simplified various missions to grant rewards. Users can convert existing point rewards into cash, allowing them to use 1 cash like 1 won at partner businesses. Wrtn revealed it currently has about 20 to 30 partner companies, but it intends to first disclose only those that can be used like cash through mobile or paper gift cards.
On this day, wrtn's executives indicated that they are considering the potential for long-term entry into the financial sector, including payment services from Naver and Kakao. CEO Lee responded to a question about whether they are targeting the portal position held by Naver and Kakao, saying, "Even during our period with 300,000 MAU, our dream was a portal for the AI era, and we are solidifying that goal again."
When asked about the differences between wrtn and other generative AIs such as ChatGPT, wrtn highlighted "free service" and "personalized service." Wrtn is currently available for free without a subscription model. The CPO noted, "The ability to use AI services for free is a strong point of the product," indicating that this will continue in the future. He also added, "We operate in a way not limited to large language models (LLMs). It is important to utilize the appropriate LLM for the situation and content preferred by users."
CEO Lee stated regarding the meeting with Satya Nadella, the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, who visited last month, "Since practical collaboration is underway, it is difficult to discuss specifics, but I will explain once it is materialized."