“Change the Person in Charge”… 29-Year-Old Female CEO Competes with Google and AI, Overcoming Prejudice [Korean Businessperson]

At just 29 years old, Kim Ji-hyun, CEO of Korea Deep Learning, has defied expectations and propelled her company into the competitive AI landscape. She founded the startup at the age of 22 with a modest 100,000 won (approximately $75 USD), and has since transformed it into a leading document AI enterprise serving over 80 clients across public, financial, and manufacturing sectors.

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I'm sorry, but please change the person in charge.

Kim's journey has been marked by challenges. Early in her career, she faced dismissal from clients who doubted her capabilities due to her youth and gender. "I'm sorry, but please change the person in charge," was a common request she encountered. Her response has consistently been to prove her competence through results. This dedication has not only led to consistent profitability since inception but also secured a 12 billion won (approximately $9 million USD) Series A investment. Her achievements were further recognized when she was named in Forbes Asia's '30 Under 30' list in the Consumer Technology category this past May.

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The conclusion so far is that I have to keep piling up results to show them.

Korea Deep Learning's proprietary vision language model (VLM) has demonstrated remarkable performance, surpassing even general-purpose models from giants like Google and OpenAI on global document and multimodal benchmarks. Kim confidently asserts that while they may not compete across all AI domains, they are fully capable of rivaling global big tech firms within the specialized area of document AI. This confidence stems from the company's unique focus on handling complex, unstructured documents from real-world applications over the past seven years.

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We are fully capable of rivaling global big tech firms within the specialized area of document AI.

Kim emphasizes that the true battleground in AI lies not just in model development but in the quality of data and its practical application. She notes that while global companies are rapidly advancing their models, the crucial step for businesses and governments is integrating AI into their specific workflows. This requires organizing proprietary data into usable formats, a task Korea Deep Learning excels at due to its extensive experience with 'messy data' from diverse industries. Their '3Zero AI Worker' approach, focusing on zero training, zero hallucination, and zero review for exceptions, highlights their commitment to practical, efficient AI solutions.

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Models can be replaced, but the data organized to fit the organization remains.