In 2021, Hyperconnect, specialized in developing video and artificial intelligence-enabled social discovery products, is aiming for a global launch of its next-generation social network built on what experts call “Human AI” technology. 

Human AI technology, combining an artificial intelligence “brain” with a graphic augmented reality “body”, will underpin a virtual person that can see, hear, and speak naturally. Given the wide set of potential use cases across customer service, social media and beyond, global technology companies — including the likes of IBM and Samsung — are investing heavily into natural language processing, advanced augmented reality and other related fields of research.

Hyperconnect is investing tens of billions of Korean won in AI, AR, and avatar technologies for the development of its Human AI, planning to deploy a prototype suitable for social and entertainment-related environments.

Accelerated by COVID-19, native-online or “non-face-to-face” culture interaction has proliferated, driving demand for augmented and virtual reality products and services. According to Statista, the global virtual reality market will hit US $5.1 billion by 2023.

In one fast-growing market use case, “virtual influencers”— non-human social media personalities enabled by AI technology — have accumulated millions of global fans in recent years, particularly amongst Generation Z (those born after the mid-1990s).

As a serial pioneer across the “social discovery” space, Hyperconnect is planning to launch the world’s first social network with Human AI technology at its core. Leveraging years of social platform operating know-how — with more than 500 million downloads recorded across its current suite of social app products — and proprietary technology capabilities.

Hyperconnect will launch a new type of social forum for meeting friends, making connections and building relationships. In this first-of-its-kind platform, real human users will interact fluidly with Human AI-enabled “users”, enabling anyone to find welcoming communities of like-minded individuals.

Hyperconnect also expects to utilize Human AI technology across its flagship 'Azar' service and social live streaming platform 'Hakuna Live'. In Azar, users will be able to, for example, virtually interact and enjoy casual conversation with famous figures of history — the likes of Albert Einstein — recreated through advanced speech, natural language processing and other technologies. Hakuna’s offering will be augmented via “AI streamers'', adding to the social streaming platform’s already dynamic ‘playground’ experience.

"The development of artificial intelligence-related technologies has accelerated. Particularly as the possibilities of large scale machine learning models have broadened, we have determined that ‘now’ is the right time for us to embark on the development of fully functional Human AI technology,” remarks Hyeon-taek “Eddie” Yong, Hyperconnect’s Chief Technology Officer. “Hyperconnect focuses on platforms that allow users around the world to enjoy connectivity based on advanced and reliable technologies and various research fields, such as AI, deep learning, and video communication. We spare no effort in developing and investing in artificial intelligence technology to enable not only a fun experience, but a safe one."

Hyperconnect was the world’sfirst company to commercialize “WebRTC” technology in a mobile environment,first launching ‘Azar’ in 2014, ‘Hakuna Live’ in 2019 and social discovery datingapp 'Slide' in 2020. Hyperconnect, based in Seoul, South Korea, is globally recognized for itsadvancements in the world of artificial intelligence, particularly its developmentof a proprietary “on-device” AI engine.

In 2016, Hyperconnect had already introduced a machine learning-based real-time voice translation function to ‘Azar’ in collaboration with Google. Focused on developing a light and fast ‘On-device AI’, Hyperconnect succeeded in incorporating ‘Device AI that came in February 2017’ image recognition function into ‘Azar’

A next-generation deep learningtechnology that runs directly on mobile devices, Hyperconnect’s on-device AIdrives powerful in-app capabilities without data ever leaving the device,mitigating data leakage and privacy issues while enabling groundbreakingoutcomes across video, image, voice, and text.

Hyperconnect’s accolades also include its real-time voice translation technology,ultimately published and adopted in 2019 and 2020 at INTERSPEECH, theInternational Society for Speech Language Processing. Hyperconnect was thefirst Korean company to win the CVPR 2018 International Low-Power Image-TypeCompetition (LPIRC),  and demonstrated 'Marionette  in 'ICCV 2019', a facial reenactment technology that, with only one photo, can reproduce an image that follows the movements made by the original target face.

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