Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit 2024 in Hawaii featured many of the latest smart devices, including smartphones, PCs, XR devices and automobiles, with an overarching theme of how AI will power a new connected ecosystem in the future. The summit also featured some of the world’s most innovative startups, which demonstrated how they are leveraging the power of AI. One such company was Upstage.ai, a South Korean startup that has developed a unique enterprise AI solution. To learn more about the company’s progress in the space and what AI can bring to the enterprise, Counterpoint’s Research Director Marc Einstein sat down with Upstage Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Lucy Park at the event.

The Interview

Key Takeaways from the Discussion

Optical Character Recognition + LLMs = AI Enterprise

• Upstage was founded four years ago in South Korea with a focus on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology for enterprise use.
• The company later added AI to the solution and now creates LLMs for enterprise use.
• After quickly gaining customers in its home market, such as Samsung and Hanwha, it is now expanding to Japan and the US.
• Investors include prominent companies such as SoftBank, Korea Telecom and SK Networks.

Embracing both on-device and cloud AI in office

• Upstage demonstrated its latest solution Solar Box, which is the enterprise name of its LLM, at the Snapdragon Summit 2024.
• Solar Box has three main components – Solar LLM, OCR processing engine, and industry-specific applications.
• These solutions can be offered in English, Korean and Japanese.
  

Security is paramount

• A key feature of Solar Box is it can process information both on-device and via the cloud.
• This is especially important for large enterprises and the public sector which handle sensitive data.
• Many companies were unable to use LLMs via the cloud due to security concerns, but Solar Box allows them to use on-device AI with sensitive data and the cloud with non-sensitive data.

An LLM for every industry and even every company

• Upstage has been training its models on industry-specific data to deliver faster and more accurate results.
• The company initially focused on the insurance industry but has recently expanded to other verticals such as finance, logistics, healthcare, and legal services.
• Eventually, LLMs will be designed not only at the industry vertical level but even at the company level.
  

Analyst Takeaways

• GenAI not only has significant mindshare in the consumer market but it also holds significant potential for the enterprise. However, there are challenges in the enterprise space, like security. Many large companies have encountered security issues when using cloud-based solutions, such as having source code uploaded to public models.
• This is why on-device capabilities are also needed. Large, complicated calculations need the cloud, but very sensitive data needs to be on-prem, which is why there is significant potential for hybrid solutions such as Solar Box.
• Industry-specific solutions are also critical as large AI companies are still focusing on mass-market applications even as there is a very strong demand from enterprises to automate processes. Smaller companies that can offer versatile solutions for enterprises in areas such as compliance stand to benefit significantly going forward.