[비즈한국] “The era of just having conversations is over. We have entered the era of getting work done through AI agents. Upstage will lead the opening of an 'AI for Everyone' era.”
On the 16th, Upstage held a media day at the Conrad Seoul Hotel in Yeouido, announcing the launch of 'Upstage Company.' While the company had previously focused on supplying AI models and solutions to enterprises, its new strategy involves expanding its business scope to general users through the web portal 'Daum' and its general-purpose AI agent platform 'Timely.'
Solar 'Open 2' Performance Revealed, 'Pro 4' Launch Scheduled for Next Month
Founded in 2020, Upstage has been providing enterprises with its proprietary Large Language Model (LLM) 'Solar' and its document processing solution 'Document Parse' (DP). Currently, over 200 companies worldwide, including those in Korea, the U.S., and Japan, have adopted Upstage's AI. Last year, the company was selected as a lead developer for the sovereign AI foundation model development project sponsored by the Ministry of Science and ICT.
With this corporate launch, Upstage intends to integrate its portal and agent platforms with its own AI models, expanding its reach from enterprise clients to individual consumers. This means securing touchpoints where general users can interact with Solar through Daum and Timely, while simultaneously targeting the enterprise agent market with its high-performance Solar models.
During the event, Upstage CEO Kim Sung-hoon unveiled the mid-point performance metrics of a next-generation model currently in development, stating, “The preview version of our open-source model 'Solar Open 2' has demonstrated performance levels comparable to Anthropic’s 'Claude Sonnet 4.6' and OpenAI’s 'GPT-5.'”
According to Upstage, the Solar Open 2 preview version scored 44.4 points on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (AAII). However, as the model is still under development, the score has not been publicly released to external parties.
Upstage plans to release Solar Open 2 later this month, followed by the commercial model 'Solar Pro 4' in July. The company has set a goal to secure top-tier performance among open models by the end of the year.
CEO Kim emphasized, “AI agents will evolve into two forms: those that operate autonomously and those that follow processes defined by companies. Upstage will develop the necessary technology for both domains.”
Why Acquire Daum? It’s About 'Tokenomics'… Increasing Solar Usage
Behind Upstage’s acquisition of Daum lies the plan to expand its business structure from business-to-business (B2B) to business-to-consumer (B2C). The strategy is to apply Solar to everyday services on Daum—such as search, news, and shopping—to increase token consumption and translate this into business success.
CEO Kim stated, “The competitiveness of an AI company depends on how many tokens generated by its own model are consumed. Our goal is to have more users interact with Solar through Daum.”
He added, “Many users visit Daum daily and perform multiple searches. This can generate far greater token usage than if Upstage simply supplied models to companies.” He also announced plans to present business performance based on actual token sales by the second half of the year or early next year.
Starting in July, an 'AI Overview' feature, which provides AI-summarized search results, will be applied to Daum. The company plans to expand this feature, currently applied to a limited number of search terms, to cover all search queries within the year. AI functions will also be introduced to the news service sequentially.
The company is also developing 'AI Vertical Search,' which provides specialized services ranging from search to information comparison and recommendations in specific fields. The plan is to cooperate with partners to launch services focusing on areas that can solve specific daily life problems, such as shopping or real estate.
AXZ CEO Lee Kun-soo remarked, “AI Overview alone is not enough to differentiate us from Google or Naver. We will achieve several small victories in fields where we can truly solve users' daily problems.”
AI is a National Strategic Asset… Over Half of Investment Allocated to Model Development
While Upstage is expanding its service footprint through Daum and Timely, its policy remains to dedicate the most resources to improving the performance of its proprietary models. More than half of the secured investment will be used for model training, with the remainder allocated to securing Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) and business operations.
CEO Kim stated, “We will focus on model development until we reach a stage where 'self-improvement,' where the model enhances its own performance, is possible. Currently, most of the company's human and financial resources are being directed toward improving model performance.”
He also highlighted the necessity of securing independent AI models, especially as the importance of technological sovereignty grows in the wake of recent U.S. government export controls. He explained that relying on the technology of a specific country or company could lead to the cessation of supply and access based on policy changes.
CEO Kim noted, “AI has now become a national strategic asset, not just a simple service or tool. Some might say we can just use Chinese technology, but since China can also cut off supply based on its needs, we must ultimately maximize our own technological prowess.”
He further argued, “The government’s support for sovereign AI foundation models through GPU provision is very timely, but to compete with global companies, we need at least 10 times the current scale of support.”
Upstage remains open to potential investments and acquisitions of companies that can help spread its AI technology to more users and enterprises. CEO Kim concluded, “We welcome any company that can help propagate the AI technology we have created and achieve our goal of 'AI for Everyone' together. We will continue to improve our model performance while spreading it to the public and businesses through Daum and Timely.”