Oh Seung-taek, founder and CEO of AIMMO / Courtesy of AIMMO

AIMMO, predicting increased use of AI technology for data collection and utilization services as many companies adopt AI models, aims for global expansion in the AI data market, particularly in the autonomous driving sector, according to its CEO.

"Collecting data, organizing it for easy use, labeling it and applying it to the customers' business models to enhance performance — that is what we are offering," Oh Seung-taek, founder and CEO of AIMMO, told The Korea Times during a recent interview at his office in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. "We have come to realize that autonomous driving is at the pinnacle of this AI data business, and we are providing our AI data platform to customers in the automotive industry."

Oh founded Bluewhale, which was later renamed AIMMO, in 2016. The CEO said he realized the importance of data during his time as the head of the e-commerce team at Daum Communications, which has now become a subsidy of the domestic internet company Kakao.

"When I was working in e-commerce, I was analyzing the number of visitors and other activities to try to get them to buy products," the CEO said, adding that this is when he realized the importance of data and later established a startup providing data labeling.

After that, he said, AIMMO shifted its direction to providing data business services for autonomous driving, which requires a wider scope of data management services.

"When I was in data labeling, I realized that the upside market for this business was autonomous driving. I realized that data labeling is not the only data-driven business needed to develop autonomous driving models," he said.

As the CEO mentioned, AIMMO provides an end-to-end data management platform utilizing AI, from data collection, purification and processing to evaluation, necessary for the development of AI models in various fields.

The company said its AI technology significantly reduces the time and costs required for clients to manage data and drastically decreases the likelihood of errors in data management.

In the field of autonomous driving, utilizing AI technology to make self-driving safer and more accurate, AIMMO provides its data platform that helps enterprise customers develop AI models faster, more accurately and more affordably.

"Not only domestic companies but also many carmakers and auto parts companies in Europe are doing business with us. Currently, we have more than 200 client companies both domestically and internationally," Oh said.

The CEO said the projects AIMMO has been working on with global carmakers will show significant numbers this year. To increase its reach to global customers, AIMMO opened branches in the United States and Germany in 2023 and plans to further its global expansion this year.

"Our global business expansion starts from this year. We had revenue from overseas business last year, and we signed a contract with a Europe-based global carmaker. This year, we will see concrete results from those efforts," the CEO said. "Last year, the proportion of overseas business in our sales was 15 percent, but this year, we expect the proportion of overseas sales to grow to about 50 percent."

AIMMO CEO Oh Seung-taek speaks during the AIMMO AI Tech Summit event held on the sidelines of the CES tech trade show in Las Vegas, Jan. 11. Courtesy of AIMMO

Looking to expand beyond self-driving

The CEO said that AIMMO's AI data platform service not only targets the autonomous driving market but is also set to expand its business into other areas such as smart cities, where data collection and processing services can play a significant role in enhancing the sustainability and efficiency of cities.

He said that efficient utilization of data is essential for smart city projects, and their data technology will be widely used to help people living in existing or newly built cities lead smarter lives.

"We are expanding our AI data business to smart city projects. For example, we are working on projects to develop algorithms to find potholes or cracks on city roads for maintenance," Oh said. "Also, our AI data platform service can be utilized in various industries such as robots, drones, logistics, manufacturing and video surveillance."

AIMMO also unveiled 4 Core, its advanced AI data platform that enables customers to efficiently reduce the time and cost of building data for use in the AI industry at the CES tech trade show in January. By using this platform, customers can seamlessly perform the entire process of utilizing data from data collection, curation and annotation to evaluation, the company said.

Stating that the 4 Core can be applicable in all industries involving humans and AI, including autonomous driving, smart cities, CCTV, robots, drones, ships and construction equipment, the company added it received positive feedback when it introduced the end-to-end data platform.

Sharing the company's goal this year, Oh said it is scheduled to go public on the stock market here in the fourth quarter of 2024 to accelerate its growth.

"We are planning for an IPO in the fourth quarter of this year to further expand our global approach," he said. "Through global market expansion, the company aims to double its revenue target this year."

Who is Oh Seung-taek?

Oh Seung-taek is founder and CEO of AIMMO. He founded AIMMO in 2016 and has grown the software company into an AI data platform provider that helps enterprise customers in the autonomous driving, smart city, robotics and surveillance sectors use AI to disrupt their markets.

Oh graduated from Hanyang University where he majored in public administration. Before establishing AIMMO, he worked on the internet system planning team and database planning team at telecommunications company KT and served as the head of CJ CheilJedang's e-biz team and the head of the e-commerce division at Daum Communications.