Yanolja is a number one international expertise firm providing complete data-driven providers to reinforce experiences for each journey trade enterprises and vacationers. Yanolja’s cloud-based platform connects over 1.3 million journey firms 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 almost 20 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 contains software program engineering roles at Yahoo and Samsung Electronics, the place he developed and honed his technical experience.
You’ve had an unimaginable journey from Google to Yanolja, together with a job in organising 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 20 years at Google, I witnessed how knowledge and expertise can remodel lives and drive significant innovation. But, as impactful as these developments had been, the journey trade had lagged behind in adopting cutting-edge expertise.
After 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. 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 novel alternative to affix 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 strategy not solely enhances operational effectivity but in addition redefines buyer experiences, positioning Yanolja as a worldwide chief in journey tech.
As a frontrunner within the AI area, what classes from Google and your earlier roles have been most impactful in shaping your strategy to driving AI innovation at Yanolja?
Two key classes have formed my strategy. First, expertise must be human-centered. The tempo of innovation usually outstrips folks’s capability to adapt, so intuitive design is important for broader adoption. Second, knowledge is the muse of AI. If knowledge is incomplete or flawed, AI outcomes might be inaccurate and even dangerous, very similar to a toddler appearing on deceptive experiences.
At Yanolja, we prioritize knowledge integrity throughout the whole journey worth chain. By making certain that the information flowing via our techniques is correct, we ship safe, clear options for each our B2B companions and finish clients. That is the place Yanolja’s Vertical AI strategy turns into important—we specialise in AI options tailor-made for the journey trade, driving measurable outcomes that straight improve profitability and buyer satisfaction.
How has your expertise working throughout totally different international locations and tech ecosystems (South Korea, Silicon Valley) influenced your management fashion and imaginative and prescient for expertise?
At Google in Silicon Valley, I collaborated with groups from all over the world on international providers, which taught me the significance of aligning numerous groups towards a typical objective. At Yanolja, I now lead R&D groups throughout Korea, India, Israel, and Europe, uniting them as “One Yanolja Team” to drive innovation and execute tasks collaboratively.
My Silicon Valley expertise bolstered the necessity to stability short-term enterprise priorities with long-term technological investments. Whereas speedy options handle urgent challenges, sustainable innovation requires foundational work. At Yanolja, we combine knowledge and AI to deal with at present’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, notably in areas like operational effectivity and buyer expertise?
The journey trade has lengthy been gradual to embrace technological change. Many operations in hospitality and reserving are nonetheless guide or inefficient, limiting each productiveness and potential development. 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 value changes, straight 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 and marketing, workflow optimization, and product growth. Our Vertical AI options are tailor-made to satisfy the distinctive wants of journey companies, enabling us to steer the trade’s transformation by creating revolutionary, 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 international 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 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. Right this moment, Yanolja helps over 60 languages, reflecting our dedication to inclusivity and international accessibility.
Yanolja presents 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 illustration, our AI interface permits lodge managers to question duties like room assignments or operational experiences conversationally, simplifying advanced processes.
Moreover, AI-powered customer support instruments assist us automate the classification and prioritization of inquiries, lowering response instances 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 functions, and what function does knowledge high quality play within the success of your options?
AI continues to unlock the potential of underutilized knowledge, reworking 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 absolutely 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 personalised 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 an information lake, and AI/ML-based knowledge applied sciences—all of that are important to sustaining knowledge high quality and unlocking new functions.
What developments do you see shaping the way forward for AI within the journey trade, and the way is Yanolja positioning itself to steer on this area?
AI is poised to revolutionize the journey trade 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 may also 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 functions that handle the distinctive challenges of the journey trade. Our data-driven options are already serving to companies optimize operations, personalize providers, and finally improve buyer satisfaction.
The long run may also see larger integration of AI throughout the whole journey journey, from the second a buyer desires about their journey to once they share their expertise post-trip. We’re positioning ourselves to steer this transformation 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 gotten for fostering innovation and collaboration in tech groups?
In the beginning, it’s vital to have a transparent and sustainable imaginative and prescient and mission for what we purpose to attain with expertise. Every particular person brings distinctive strengths to the desk. Nevertheless, regardless of how gifted a gaggle of individuals is, if they don’t seem to be aligned of their route, they threat falling behind within the quickly altering exterior setting of the AI period. I imagine that what’s wanted at present just isn’t one genius who can’t collaborate, however a group of 10 people with distinctive teamwork. It’s about taking 10 items of wooden—every totally different in form, measurement, and colour—and turning them into a novel masterpiece. The final word objective is to create one thing that improves the lives of individuals all over the world. 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 develop into a worldwide chief in journey expertise?
Leaving a well-established firm in Silicon Valley to affix Yanolja was pushed by my objective 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 expertise 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 finally drive Yanolja’s success.
Trying forward, Yanolja goals to be the muse for international 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 solely new methods for companies and shoppers to expertise journey, disrupting the trade in methods we’ve solely simply begun to discover.
Thanks for the good interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to Yanolja.
