Lee Gyo-gu, CEO of Supertone, Selected as One of Time's 100 Most Influential People in AI Field in the US

"K-Pop AI Technology Transformation Pioneer"
Only Korean, First Korean Entrepreneur

Lee Gyo-gu, CEO of AI audio company Superton, has been selected as one of the 100 most influential people in the AI field (TIME100 AI).

Lee Gyo-gu, CEO of Superton. [Photo by Superton]

The American news weekly TIME announced the ‘TIME100 AI 2024’ list on its official website on the 5th (local time), including CEO Lee. For the second year in a row, TIME revealed this list and named Lee as a figure in the Shapers category. Lee attracted attention as the only Korean and the first Korean entrepreneur to be selected.

‘TIME100 AI’ is a list compiled annually by TIME, selecting 100 people worldwide from industries such as business, academia, and government who have had a significant impact in the AI field. The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Thinkers, and Shapers, with individual interviews highlighting each person.

This year’s list includes AI big tech figures such as Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA; Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta; and Liang Rubo, co-founder of ByteDance, which operates the short-form platform TikTok. Various figures from different fields, including 15-year-old Francesca Mani, founder of a deepfake victim protection organization, and actress Scarlett Johansson, were also named.

In selecting Lee Gyo-gu, TIME stated, "The K-pop industry is experimenting with AI technology more rapidly and diversely than the American music industry," adding, "Lee stands at the center of this change." They further noted, "Superton has revived the voice of Korea’s legendary singer the late Kim Kwang-seok through AI voice technology and supported MIDNATT in releasing new songs in six languages."

In an interview with TIME, CEO Lee said, "Superton helps creators embed stories into content without the constraints of country or language through AI voice technology," and added, "We believe our technology will help better convey creators’ original messages and elevate the relationship between fans and artists to a new level."

Superton, a subsidiary of HYBE, is creating synergy by collaborating across various entertainment fields such as music, film, animation, and games using its proprietary AI voice technology. The noise reduction plugin ‘Superton Clear,’ released at the end of last year, has secured a global user base, and the AI real-time voice conversion service ‘Superton Shift’ began open beta testing in the first half of this year, recording 220,000 app downloads in just over five months.

In the second half of this year, Superton plans to launch an open beta version of its new voice conversion (TTS) service, ‘Superton Play.’