NC AI Research Team Started with Four Members... Attracting Interest from Game, Fashion, and Media Companies

Interview with Lee Yeonsu, CEO of NC AI
Started at NCSOFT R&D
Spun off as a separate company this February after over a decade
Text-to-speech and 3D generation technologies
Supporting the creation of game characters
Adopted by fashion companies including MLB

A single "blockbuster game" incorporates a multitude of technologies. Characters speak naturally, change their actions according to emotions, and even translate in-game slang for global users. Since 2014, NCSOFT has established a research and development (R&D) organization to enable artificial intelligence (AI) to realize these technologies. Starting with just four team members, this organization has continuously expanded to apply the AI technologies developed for games to other industries, and in February of this year, it was spun off as a specialized technology company called "NC AI."

Lee Yeonsu, CEO of NC AI, is being interviewed by Asia Economy at the Pangyo office in Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do. Photo by Jo Yongjun

Lee Yeonsu, the inaugural CEO of NC AI, is a living witness to the evolution of NCSOFT's AI. In an interview at NCSOFT's Pangyo headquarters on June 25, Lee said, "When we commercialized the AI technologies accumulated over more than ten years of game development, the response was enthusiastic not only from other game companies but also from media and fashion companies." She added, "Since the spin-off, we have been meeting clients directly and identifying their needs, and all our members are intensely focused on commercializing AI technology."

After completing her undergraduate and graduate studies, including her master's and doctoral degrees, in the Department of Computer Science at Korea University, Lee joined NCSOFT in August 2014 as a member of the "AI Lab." In January 2016, she became the head of the "NLP (Natural Language Processing) Lab," then served as director of the NLP Lab and head of the NLP Center, leading the development of the proprietary large language model (LLM) "Barco." In January last year, she was appointed head of NCSOFT Research, overseeing AI R&D, and at the end of the year, she was named CEO of the newly established subsidiary NC AI.

The AI technologies that have excited the gaming industry are "text-to-speech (TTS)" and "3D generation." Lee explained, "When game characters converse, acting is involved, so traditional TTS technology, with its stiff tone, sounds unnatural." She added, "It takes significant time and cost to hire and record with professional voice actors." She continued, "Because changing each character's mouth or facial expression to match the voice is labor-intensive, not only mid-sized and indie game companies but also major competitors are testing 3D generation technology."

The "AI dubbing" technology is a perfect fit for content creators. It goes a step beyond converting text to speech (TTS) by reproducing the actual tone and emotion of a person's voice and then automatically translating it into more than ten languages. As a subsidiary of a game company, it can even convert in-game slang or abbreviations into words appropriate for local cultures. Lee predicted, "There are many countries overseas that prefer dubbing over subtitles, and AI dubbing technology will also be helpful when exporting movies or dramas."

There is also a unique convergence of game AI and fashion. Ten major domestic fashion companies, including F&F, which owns the MLB and Discovery brands, are utilizing NC AI technology. Lee said, "In situations where visual ideas are needed, such as planning new products, labor costs can be reduced by about 70 to 80 percent."

She added, "There are many online shopping malls that only show photos of clothes without so-called 'wearing shots,' but NC AI technology can generate images of people wearing the clothes without distorting the material or fit." She continued, "While AI image generation companies like Midjourney refuse to generate underwear photos due to concerns about explicit content, we can provide this technology to underwear brands as well, since we operate in a business-to-business (B2B) environment."

The NCSOFT R&D organization, which started with four AI personnel, has now grown into a specialized technology company with about 160 researchers and a total staff of 200. Lee said, "To secure AI talent, I visited each lab every semester to check who was graduating and went back just before graduation, putting in a lot of effort." She added, "Every year, we carry out four to five industry-academia collaboration projects with different labs, and I considered even the lab members as 'my employees' and 'our team' when recruiting people."

As for how she rose to the position of CEO in a so-called male-dominated industry, she said, "You have to accept reality." She explained, "The higher you go, the fewer women there are, and the reality is that you have to work by the rules of men." She advised, "It would be great if there were more women, but since that's not easy for now, you have to think strategically and act with a goal-oriented mindset."

The future technology envisioned by NC AI is "a space where everything in the world is created in 3D." She said, "This space will serve as a training ground for AI." She explained, "To commercialize devices such as autonomous vehicles, robots, and drones, they need to experience situations like 'snowy days' or 'people suddenly running out,' but it's not easy to recreate these scenarios in reality." She concluded, "Within the next ten years, we will create a 3D world and train AI-powered devices in it."