[AI Revolution](61) MediaZen Expands into Education, Automotive, and Healthcare with Voice Technology

Korean Voice Supply at World Athletics Championships
Expansion into Automotive, Education, and Healthcare
AI Specialist Developers Nearly 10% of Total Workforce

Last month, iFLYTEK from China attracted attention by participating as a multilingual AI (artificial intelligence) technology provider at the World Athletics Championships held in Hungary. Their role was to provide in-venue guidance, promotion, and services in languages from around the world. iFLYTEK is the first company in China to develop AI voice recognition technology. The AI open platform created by iFLYTEK is used by approximately 2 million developers worldwide. It is one of the Chinese companies emerging as a 'rival' to the OpenAI platform led by 'Chat GPT.'

There is a Korean company that participated in the event as a partner of iFLYTEK. It is Mediazen, a Korean voice AI specialist company. Mediazen supplied the Korean language voice synthesis engine. Spectators at the event were able to receive Korean voice services through digital humans. It was the moment Mediazen’s technology debuted on the international stage. Song Min-gyu, Executive Director of Mediazen, said, "I was glad to introduce our voice solutions on the international stage," adding, "It is very meaningful that we have entered the global AI market."

Ko Hun, CEO of Mediazen (Photo by Mediazen)

Founded in 2000, Mediazen is a company that has focused solely on voice recognition technology. It possesses original technologies for building datasets for large language model (LLM) training and AI engine algorithms. The company operates in various sectors including smart cars, smart contact centers, AI edutech, AI kiosks, and multilingual AI interpretation services. Mediazen is especially recognized as a leading company in the edutech field utilizing AI voice recognition technology.

Mediazen’s flagship service, the AI 'Language Tutor,' is a smart teacher that learns and teaches independently. It integrates AI technology in areas such as English pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. It is usually accessed via PC web pages. For example, when a learner pronounces English words, the AI analyzes and helps correct intonation, rhythm, and stress individually. It provides real-time feedback as if conversing with a person. It has even received a certification from an official institution confirming a pronunciation evaluation accuracy of 97.15%. The company also holds three related patents. Moreover, as learning data accumulates, the quality of AI-provided answers improves because it is fundamentally equipped with machine learning (a system that supports learning or performance improvement based on usage data). The AI Language Tutor is supplied to well-known language institutes and universities in Korea, including Busan University of Foreign Studies.

Mediazen Headquarters (Photo by Mediazen)

The secret to Mediazen’s advancement in voice recognition technology lies in its focused investment in R&D (research and development). There are about 20 AI development specialists working in the AI research lab, accounting for about 10% of the total staff. Despite an operating loss of 2.1 billion KRW last year (with sales of 17.2 billion KRW) due to aggressive R&D, results are emerging. Domestic and international large corporations trust Mediazen’s technology and choose it as a partner. Mediazen is developing next-generation smart voice services in collaboration with Hyundai Motor Company and providing 24 language models to Volkswagen through cooperation with LG Electronics.

Recently, Mediazen also won a project to build AI data for LLM through a consortium. It was finally selected as the AI learning data construction business operator by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Intelligent Information Society Agency. Through this project, it plans to build healthcare Q&A data by the end of this year. Following the automotive and education sectors, Mediazen’s technology application areas are expanding to healthcare. Executive Director Song Min-gyu said, “We are pleased to be selected as a large-scale data construction business operator,” adding, “We will strive to minimize hallucinations (generation of incorrect or false information) in the healthcare field, which helps real life.”