AiD, a digital marketing solution using AI video understanding

Koreans use YouTube on an average of over 70 minutes per day. But, many of the contents on YouTube have ads inserted at the beginning of, or during, the video. The problem is that these ads are not exposed as intended by advertisers. If these ads are placed on harmful, explicit, hateful, or biased contents, or on fake news, this could be a fatal factor for the companies’ branding. PYLER prevents ads from being exposed to harmful contents to protect the companies’ image values and offers services that target ads to contents that fit the brand context.
“When an advertisement is exposed on YouTube, it goes out on millions of contents. Unlike TV or newspapers, it is exposed to too many videos, making it impossible for people to monitor them one-by-one. We use AI to detect and solve these issues. We also provide a service that targets ads to contents that fit the advertisers’ brand context.”
PYLER’s brand-safety advertisement solution AiD addresses issues within YouTube domain using AI video understanding technology. It distinguishes itself by focusing on the context of the content where the ad is placed, rather than on user tracking. In the past, ad-tech companies recommended ads through user information tracking. However, regulations on privacy invasion are becoming stricter, especially in the United States and Europe. Contextual advertising based on AI, which provides ads related to contents chosen by users, has become a reliable solution for many advertisers. CEO Oh JaeHo expected that measuring advertising performance accurately through contextual advertising would undoubtedly become a 'cash cow.' This solution also proved to be effective in reducing advertising budgets.
“YouTube ads are often used for branding purposes. The problem is that the measurement of the performance of such branding ads is based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) according to the number of exposures relative to the budget. Since measurement is difficult, this area has the most severe volatility of budget utilization. I believe that what we need to do is to address the inefficiency of budget utilization from a market perspective.”
PYLER diagnoses wasted budgets exposed to harmful content, visualizes cost-savings by comparing budget execution data before and after contextual advertising, and demonstrates the cost-effectiveness. Clients who prioritize branding are actively turning to PYLER. The more high-end luxury brands and large companies, the more significant the value of branding. Although global companies place a high-KPI on brand stability, this culture is just beginning to take shape in Korea. PYLER's solution is a technology-combined advertising solution. It focuses on protecting brand stability and value, creating a new path in the market.

UNIST student startup PYLER

A developing company of vision language model that comprehensively understands and provides solutions in the video field

A business that is bound to succeed!

PYLER's clear solution has significantly increased the company’s investment value. Since its establishment in 2021 until November 2023, it has attracted investments totaling KRW 9 billion. This investment was possible thanks to the company’s unique technology that can utilize video understanding as a solution. It's a field that the market demands, and will be increasingly required in the future.
CEO Oh JaeHo stated his mottos, “For a business with vision, investments are bound to follow. My idea of attracting investments is persuasiveness. Business that is profitable comes with investment. The best investors are the ones that notice us first, and I believe we should do business in a way to attract such investors.”
CEO Oh JaeHo did not actively seek investors from the early stages. Those who came to them after seeing the business model became investors naturally. CEO Oh does not describe PYLER as merely an advertising tech company. Advertising tech is just a stepping stone. PYLER’s key technology is video understanding through AI. In other words, PYLER is a company that creates a “vision language model” that comprehensively understands and provides solutions in the video field. This exceptional potential is what sets it apart.
To ensure business quality, PYLER has robust manpower. A former Senior Product Manager from the U.S. adTech app performance company 'Moloco' serves as PYLER’s Chief Product Officer(CPO), and a former Content Manager for CJ ENM, a leading entertainment company in Korea, has joined as Chief Strategy Officer (CSO).

Proved his value through technology at the age of 22

The young CEO Oh JaeHo, who is just 22 years of age this year and entered UNIST in 2021, is boldly leaping the hurdles in the market only with his skills, turning opportunities into his foothold. Since his middle and high school years, Oh has dreamed of an AI business and worked hard to visualize the future AI trends. Deciding to go where he could specialize in AI, he contacted AI graduate school professors in Korea by email. He began his research life as a member of the student startup team in the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the Graduate School, Sungkyunkwan University, which was the only one where he was connected. He took high school online classes while working as a researcher and reviewed the Transformer paper, and learned that the release of an AI model based on text or query was imminent.
So, he decided that he needed to focus on the video field in order to be at the forefront of the AI business. While everyone was engaged in natural language processing (NLP) and query research, CEO Oh reviewed and researched video captioning and image captioning papers consistently. As a result, he was able to compete against global big-tech companies such as Intel in the United States and Tencent in China at 2022 CVPR (Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition) — the world’s largest computer vision pattern recognition conference, and won second place overall — proving his outstanding technical skills and competitiveness.
“I started my business backwards, which is why my case is different compared to others. Usually, people discover a problem and start a business to solve it, but unlike this I thought about which field my technology could be a solution for.”
CEO Oh JaeHo explored areas where he could apply video understanding and used his technology to interpret the market, which led to the birth of PYLER. The company is now aims to develop an AI platform that excellently analyzes context beyond brand stability solutions and advertising technology in the video field. A global platform that can search the right videos! The goal is to win a unique leading position as a video understanding tech company, comparable to OpenAI and Google. Oh, who constantly challenges and leaps over hurdles to overcome limitations, gave some sincere advice to UNIST members aspiring to start their own businesses.
“Building your own startup can lead to great accomplishments, but it also comes with its share of responsibility. You need to make the right choice to succeed in the challenge, and you also need luck. There are many good things, but at the same time, there are many obstacles. I hope you take on challenges carefully, with a clear goal.”