[AI Revolution]⑮ The Identity of the Education Company Invested in by ChatGPT Developer OpenAI

Selected as ChatGPT Plugin Partner
Operates 'Speak', Korea's No.1 Education App
Gaining Popularity with GPT-4 Powered 'AI Tutor'

Cha Seungjae, Vice President of SpeakEasy Labs

Last month, OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, unveiled the ‘ChatGPT Plugin’ service. The plugin service functions to bring external services into ChatGPT. It essentially turns ChatGPT into a kind of platform. For example, through ChatGPT, users can search and book hotels in partnership with Expedia. All of this is possible with just a single command. This is why plugins are gaining attention as the ‘App Store of the AI world.’

So far, there are 11 partner companies for the plugin service. Korean startups have also placed their names on the ‘waiting list’ and are lined up. Meanwhile, there is already a company based in Korea included as a ChatGPT plugin partner: the edutech company ‘SpeakEasy Labs.’

SpeakEasy Labs operates the mobile app ‘Speak,’ an app for learning English conversation. Last year, it ranked first in the education category across both the Google Play Store and Apple Store. Its cumulative revenue exceeds 20 million dollars (approximately 26 billion KRW). It is causing a sensation in the Korean private English education market, with over 90% of its users based in Korea. The company has also started expanding overseas, entering Japan last year as its second market.

Corner Zwick Speek CEO

Speak was co-founded in 2016 by Americans Connor Zwick and Andrew Joo. Although it is a U.S. company, the decision to enter the Korean market first was based on thorough market research. The Korean private English education market alone is worth 3 trillion KRW, even when limited to adults. While it is often called a ‘red ocean,’ they analyzed that there were no outstanding services in the conversation sector. The involvement of Korean Vice President Seungjae Cha, who was Zwick’s roommate at Harvard University, also helped.

After targeting Korea, the company focused on technology development. They created technology capable of recognizing speech regardless of accent, and based on this, developed the Speak app. This was thanks to the persistent drive of CEO Zwick, a Harvard dropout who was once called a genius. Zwick had previously created an app with ‘1 million downloads’ during high school. The full-scale entry into the Korean market happened five years ago, with the app reaching 2 million downloads just two years after its launch.

As these achievements accumulated, OpenAI also began to take notice. Seed investment came from Y Combinator, where OpenAI founder Sam Altman served as chairman, and last year, they received investment from OpenAI’s startup fund. The total investment amount exceeds 60 billion KRW. OpenAI selected education as one of four promising fields, and the timing was just right, according to Speak’s side. Based on this, the AI tutor was born?a free-talking class based on GPT-4.

The AI tutor operates as follows: it recognizes the user’s voice and converts it into text. It understands the content by considering the conversational context. Then, it responds with appropriate answers in voice. The key differences from typical remote conversation classes are that users don’t have to be embarrassed about their speaking skills and that lessons are available 24/7. Despite being AI, it enables natural conversations as if interacting with a native speaker. It also immediately points out mistakes that a human might miss.

Speak emphasizes not only freedom from time and space constraints but also affordability as strengths. Membership plans include two main pricing options: 129,000 KRW per year (Premium Membership) and 299,000 KRW per year (Premium Plus). Seungjae Cha, Vice President of Speak, said, “Speak has accumulated know-how over a long period, including high user engagement and intuitive design. We want to create a world where those who want to speak English well can truly learn real English.”