Yanolja is a number one world know-how firm providing complete data-driven providers to reinforce experiences for each journey business enterprises and vacationers. Yanolja’s cloud-based platform connects over 1.3 million journey corporations throughout 206 international locations, delivering vertical AI providers 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 practically 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 had been, the journey business 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 includes dreaming, planning, reserving, and sharing—processes that generate immense quantities of information. Nevertheless, 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 singular alternative to hitch an organization on the forefront of remodeling a complete business.
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 in addition redefines buyer experiences, positioning Yanolja as a world chief in journey tech.
As a frontrunner 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 usually outstrips folks’s means 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 all the journey worth chain. By making certain that the information flowing by way of our techniques is correct, we ship safe, clear options for each our B2B companions and finish prospects. That is the place Yanolja’s Vertical AI method turns into vital—we focus on AI options tailor-made for the journey business, driving measurable outcomes that immediately improve profitability and buyer satisfaction.
How has your expertise working throughout completely different international locations and tech ecosystems (South Korea, Silicon Valley) influenced your management fashion and imaginative and prescient for know-how?
At Google in Silicon Valley, I collaborated with groups from world wide on world providers, which taught me the significance of aligning various groups towards a standard objective. 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 bolstered the necessity to stability 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 as we speak’s enterprise wants whereas constructing a platform for future management within the journey tech business.
How is Yanolja leveraging AI to remodel the journey and hospitality business, notably in areas like operational effectivity and buyer expertise?
The journey business 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 handle these gaps.
For instance, our Dynamic Pricing resolution makes use of AI and machine studying (ML) to automate real-time value changes, immediately impacting lodge revenues by changing guide processes with smarter, data-driven choices. Equally, our AI-powered journey planning providers provide personalised itineraries and optimized journey routes, enhancing buyer experiences.
Past these examples, Yanolja applies AI throughout customer support, advertising, workflow optimization, and product improvement. Our Vertical AI options are tailor-made to satisfy the distinctive wants of journey companies, enabling us to guide the business’s transformation by creating modern, environment friendly, and customer-centric techniques.
Yanolja operates in over 200 international locations. What challenges and alternatives include scaling AI options for such a various world viewers?
Scaling AI options globally requires understanding various 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 vital problem is overcoming language limitations. 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. At this time, Yanolja helps over 60 languages, reflecting our dedication to inclusivity and world accessibility.
Yanolja provides an built-in suite of options like cloud PMS, reserving engines, and cost techniques. Are you able to share insights into how these techniques 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 example, our AI interface permits lodge managers to question duties like room assignments or operational stories conversationally, simplifying advanced processes.
Moreover, AI-powered customer support instruments assist us automate the classification and prioritization of inquiries, lowering 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 function does knowledge high quality play within the success of your options?
AI continues to unlock the potential of underutilized knowledge, remodeling on-line journey companies (OTAs) into hyper-personalized journey brokers and enhancing buyer experiences. Yanolja’s deal with Vertical AI ensures our options ship measurable affect, 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 side of a traveler’s journey is personalised and optimized. To attain this, Yanolja is constructing a journey knowledge platform tailor-made for the business, incorporating connectivity, a single supply of reality through an information lake, and AI/ML-based knowledge applied sciences—all of that are vital to sustaining knowledge high quality and unlocking new purposes.
What developments do you see shaping the way forward for AI within the journey business, and the way is Yanolja positioning itself to guide on this house?
AI is poised to revolutionize the journey business by unlocking the huge potential of underutilized knowledge. Over the subsequent decade, we’ll see a shift from easy reserving platforms to extremely subtle, 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 business. Our data-driven options are already serving to companies optimize operations, personalize providers, and in the end improve buyer satisfaction.
The longer term can even see higher integration of AI throughout all the journey journey, from the second a buyer goals about their journey to after they share their expertise post-trip. We’re positioning ourselves to guide this alteration by investing closely in AI capabilities that may proceed to disrupt and redefine how the journey business operates.
As somebody who constructed and managed groups at Google Korea and now Yanolja, what recommendation do you’ve got for fostering innovation and collaboration in tech groups?
At the start, it’s essential to have a transparent and sustainable imaginative and prescient and mission for what we goal to realize with know-how. Every particular person brings distinctive strengths to the desk. Nevertheless, regardless of how gifted a bunch of individuals is, if they aren’t aligned of their route, they danger falling behind within the quickly altering exterior surroundings of the AI period. I imagine that what’s wanted as we speak is just not one genius who can’t collaborate, however a crew of 10 people with distinctive teamwork. It’s about taking 10 items of wooden—every completely different in form, dimension, and colour—and turning them into a singular masterpiece. The final word objective is to create one thing that improves the lives of individuals world wide. This, I imagine, is the function of tech groups within the AI period.
The place do you see Yanolja within the subsequent 5–10 years, notably in its quest to turn out to be a world chief in journey know-how?
Leaving a well-established firm in Silicon Valley to hitch Yanolja was pushed by my objective to disrupt the journey business 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 by way of know-how is reshaping the world, and as a tech govt, it’s my function and duty to make sure that AI-driven options create providers 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 in addition creating totally new methods for companies and shoppers to expertise journey, disrupting the business in methods we’ve solely simply begun to discover.
Thanks for the good interview, readers who want to study extra ought to go to Yanolja.
