ESTsoft (CEO Chung Sang-won), a company specializing in AI services, announced on the 27th that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Spiral.AI (CEO Yuichi Sasaki), a Japanese company building applications on large language models (LLMs), for a joint AI human business.
The MOU is the company's first overseas expansion since its 'Perso' AI human service was embedded in Microsoft's collaboration tool Teams, and came together quickly on the back of ESTsoft's strengthened global partnerships.
Spiral.AI is a promising Japanese LLM application startup founded by two former McKinsey consultants. At the seed stage it had already won recognition from top-tier Japanese venture capital for its business direction and team, raising more than KRW 10 billion. With this, following ChatGPT and HyperCLOVA X, ESTsoft has now partnered with a major Japanese LLM company as well, giving concrete shape to a business structure that can deliver its AI humans in a form optimized for each local market.
Spiral.AI currently offers Twin Room, a no-code platform for creating chatbots and voice bots on ChatGPT and its own LLM; Naomi.AI, which lets users converse with popular broadcaster Naomi Mashima by voice and chat; and Dial Mate, a voice recognition work support solution.
It also has partnerships with Japan's largest nursing operators, which provide care, nursing and health promotion services — a strong fit for ESTsoft's AI humans, which are specialized in senior care.
To launch the joint business in earnest, the two companies concluded the MOU around three main points: ▲starting a joint development project for a companionship service for Japan's largest nursing care operator, ▲discussing a joint development project for a companionship service for Japan's 30 million seniors, and ▲exploring the possibility of a joint project for a companionship service using Japanese idol IP. In short, the two companies will build a new kind of AI service in the Japanese market with AI humans at the center.
Entering Japan's senior care industry matters a great deal. It could become the first global expansion of an ESTsoft AI human business model already proven at home, and the market there is larger than Korea's. Mizuho Bank, one of Japan's three megabanks, has previously estimated that Japan's silver industry would reach roughly KRW 1,000 trillion by 2025 — about six times the KRW 168 trillion the Korea Health Industry Development Institute projects for Korea's silver industry in 2030.
To enable the two companies to collaborate quickly, ESTsoft plans to provide its AI humans as an SDK (software development kit) so they can be adopted easily into local services. The SDK standardizes the service for rapid expansion of AI humans — more specifically, it packages the tools needed to combine AI humans with an existing service. In other words, by providing the SDK, ESTsoft also builds the foundation for extending AI humans into other services.
Byun Kye-pung, Director of ESTsoft's AI Business Division, said: "Partnering with a promising local company is a strategic decision to make our AI humans' overseas expansion a success," adding, "Through this business we will prove that an AI human business model already delivering results in the domestic market can work in global markets too."