Yanolja is a number one world know-how firm providing complete data-driven companies to reinforce experiences for each journey trade enterprises and vacationers. Yanolja’s cloud-based platform connects over 1.3 million journey corporations throughout 206 nations, delivering vertical AI companies that enhance effectivity and profitability for companies whereas elevating the standard of experiences for vacationers.
Previous to Yanolja, Junyoung had a distinguished profession at Google, the place he labored for almost twenty years in varied roles, together with Software program Engineer, Engineering Supervisor, and Engineering Director. He was the primary Korean worker at Google globally, and through his tenure, he contributed to quite a few groundbreaking engineering initiatives.
Junyoung’s earlier expertise consists of software program engineering roles at Yahoo and Samsung Electronics, the place he developed and honed his technical experience.
You’ve had an unbelievable journey from Google to Yanolja, together with a job in establishing Google Korea. What motivated you to transition from a tech large to a quickly rising firm like Yanolja?
My journey started as the primary Korean native speaker employed at Google HQ in California, the place I later helped arrange Google Korea. Over twenty years at Google, I witnessed how knowledge and know-how can remodel lives and drive significant innovation. But, as impactful as these developments have been, the journey trade had lagged behind in adopting cutting-edge know-how.
Once I met Sujin Lee, Yanolja’s founder, his imaginative and prescient of addressing the inefficiencies and challenges in journey struck a chord. Journey entails dreaming, planning, reserving, and sharing—processes that generate immense quantities of knowledge. Nonetheless, this knowledge has remained largely underutilized. Yanolja’s dedication to leveraging AI and superior knowledge platforms to enhance these experiences was inspiring. It was a novel alternative to hitch an organization on the forefront of remodeling a whole trade.
Yanolja’s daring imaginative and prescient, powered by AI and our proprietary knowledge lake, permits us to refine and increase knowledge to create Vertical AI options tailor-made for the journey and hospitality sectors. This method not solely enhances operational effectivity but additionally redefines buyer experiences, positioning Yanolja as a world chief in journey tech.
As a pacesetter within the AI house, what classes from Google and your earlier roles have been most impactful in shaping your method to driving AI innovation at Yanolja?
Two key classes have formed my method. First, know-how must be human-centered. The tempo of innovation typically outstrips individuals’s skill to adapt, so intuitive design is vital for broader adoption. Second, knowledge is the inspiration of AI. If knowledge is incomplete or flawed, AI outcomes may be inaccurate and even dangerous, very similar to a toddler performing on deceptive experiences.
At Yanolja, we prioritize knowledge integrity throughout the complete journey worth chain. By making certain that the information flowing via our programs is correct, we ship safe, clear options for each our B2B companions and finish clients. That is the place Yanolja’s Vertical AI method turns into vital—we concentrate on AI options tailor-made for the journey trade, driving measurable outcomes that immediately improve profitability and buyer satisfaction.
How has your expertise working throughout totally different nations and tech ecosystems (South Korea, Silicon Valley) influenced your management model and imaginative and prescient for know-how?
At Google in Silicon Valley, I collaborated with groups from all over the world on world companies, which taught me the significance of aligning numerous groups towards a standard aim. At Yanolja, I now lead R&D groups throughout Korea, India, Israel, and Europe, uniting them as “One Yanolja Group” to drive innovation and execute initiatives collaboratively.
My Silicon Valley expertise strengthened the necessity to steadiness short-term enterprise priorities with long-term technological investments. Whereas instant options tackle urgent challenges, sustainable innovation requires foundational work. At Yanolja, we combine knowledge and AI to deal with immediately’s enterprise wants whereas constructing a platform for future management within the journey tech trade.
How is Yanolja leveraging AI to remodel the journey and hospitality trade, significantly in areas like operational effectivity and buyer expertise?
The journey trade has lengthy been sluggish to embrace technological change. Many operations in hospitality and reserving are nonetheless guide or inefficient, limiting each productiveness and potential progress. At Yanolja, we’ve launched AI-driven options to deal with these gaps.
For instance, our Dynamic Pricing resolution makes use of AI and machine studying (ML) to automate real-time worth changes, immediately impacting lodge revenues by changing guide processes with smarter, data-driven choices. Equally, our AI-powered journey planning companies provide customized itineraries and optimized journey routes, enhancing buyer experiences.
Past these examples, Yanolja applies AI throughout customer support, advertising and marketing, workflow optimization, and product growth. Our Vertical AI options are tailor-made to fulfill the distinctive wants of journey companies, enabling us to steer the trade’s transformation by creating progressive, environment friendly, and customer-centric programs.
Yanolja operates in over 200 nations. What challenges and alternatives include scaling AI options for such a various world viewers?
Scaling AI options globally requires understanding numerous market wants whereas leveraging shared insights. For instance, our Dynamic Pricing AI adapts seamlessly to markets like South Africa, India, and Korea utilizing a single mannequin that identifies common pricing patterns from our knowledge lake.
One important problem is overcoming language boundaries. To handle this, we’ve developed AI-powered instruments like context-aware picture translations, enabling non-Korean audio system to entry localized content material in English, Japanese and Chinese language. As we speak, Yanolja helps over 60 languages, reflecting our dedication to inclusivity and world accessibility.
Yanolja gives an built-in suite of options like cloud PMS, reserving engines, and cost programs. Are you able to share insights into how these programs use AI to reinforce productiveness and personalization?
We’ve built-in AI into our cloud-based lodge administration system (PMS) to streamline operations. As an illustration, our AI interface permits lodge managers to question duties like room assignments or operational stories conversationally, simplifying complicated processes.
Moreover, AI-powered customer support instruments assist us automate the classification and prioritization of inquiries, decreasing response occasions by 40%. These improvements, mixed with our Vertical AI options, guarantee operational effectivity and personalization for all stakeholders.
How does Yanolja’s proprietary Knowledge Lake assist unlock new AI purposes, and what position does knowledge high quality play within the success of your options?
AI continues to unlock the potential of underutilized knowledge, reworking on-line journey businesses (OTAs) into hyper-personalized journey brokers and enhancing buyer experiences. Yanolja’s concentrate on Vertical AI ensures our options ship measurable influence, setting us aside as leaders within the evolving journey ecosystem.
As we glance forward, we envision AI not simply optimizing journey bookings or itineraries however enabling totally built-in, seamless journey experiences. AI-driven insights will empower companies to foretell and meet buyer wants extra successfully, making certain each facet of a traveler’s journey is customized and optimized. To attain this, Yanolja is constructing a journey knowledge platform tailor-made for the trade, incorporating connectivity, a single supply of reality through a knowledge lake, and AI/ML-based knowledge applied sciences—all of that are vital to sustaining knowledge high quality and unlocking new purposes.
What tendencies do you see shaping the way forward for AI within the journey trade, and the way is Yanolja positioning itself to steer on this house?
AI is poised to revolutionize the journey trade by unlocking the huge potential of underutilized knowledge. Over the subsequent decade, we are going to see a shift from easy reserving platforms to extremely refined, AI-driven brokers that present hyper-personalized journey experiences. These AI brokers won’t solely assist vacationers plan however can even help in real-time decision-making throughout their journey.
At Yanolja, we’re on the forefront of this transformation by specializing in Vertical AI—creating specialised purposes that tackle the distinctive challenges of the journey trade. Our data-driven options are already serving to companies optimize operations, personalize companies, and in the end improve buyer satisfaction.
The longer term can even see better integration of AI throughout the complete journey journey, from the second a buyer goals about their journey to after they share their expertise post-trip. We’re positioning ourselves to steer this modification by investing closely in AI capabilities that may proceed to disrupt and redefine how the journey trade operates.
As somebody who constructed and managed groups at Google Korea and now Yanolja, what recommendation do you’ve for fostering innovation and collaboration in tech groups?
Initially, it’s essential to have a transparent and sustainable imaginative and prescient and mission for what we goal to attain with know-how. Every particular person brings distinctive strengths to the desk. Nonetheless, regardless of how gifted a bunch of individuals is, if they don’t seem to be aligned of their path, they danger falling behind within the quickly altering exterior setting of the AI period. I imagine that what’s wanted immediately just isn’t one genius who can’t collaborate, however a staff of 10 people with distinctive teamwork. It’s about taking 10 items of wooden—every totally different in form, measurement, and shade—and turning them into a novel masterpiece. The last word aim is to create one thing that improves the lives of individuals all over the world. This, I imagine, is the position of tech groups within the AI period.
The place do you see Yanolja within the subsequent 5–10 years, significantly in its quest to turn into a world chief in journey know-how?
Leaving a well-established firm in Silicon Valley to hitch Yanolja was pushed by my aim to disrupt the journey trade globally as a tech firm, leveraging knowledge. That course of is already underway, and the tempo is accelerating. On the core of this transformation is AI. Innovation via know-how is reshaping the world, and as a tech government, it’s my position and accountability to make sure that AI-driven options create companies that meet buyer wants and in the end drive Yanolja’s success.
Trying forward, Yanolja goals to be the inspiration for world journey innovation, leveraging our Vertical AI capabilities to construct a unified, environment friendly journey ecosystem. Over the subsequent decade, we envision our AI-driven options not solely enhancing operational efficiencies but additionally creating completely new methods for companies and customers to expertise journey, disrupting the trade in methods we’ve solely simply begun to discover.
Thanks for the nice interview, readers who want to study extra ought to go to Yanolja.
