In the latter half of the 2010s, the AI boom reignited, and especially a huge amount of data was accumulated, and many IT companies started using AI.
Amid such a boom, LINE Corporation (hereafter, LINE) is a company that is making rapid progress in developing AI technology. LINE was born in 2011, and as of September 2021, it has grown to become Japan’s leading communication app with 89 million users.
LINE started full-scale AI utilization in 2017 and has not only developed its own services, but is also currently working on the development of cutting-edge AI technology through management integration with Z Holdings Corporation.
In this article, we will explain how LINE is active in the AI field, as well as its research content and strengths.
Table of Contents
- Introduced an in-house company system to strongly promote the AI business｜LINE’s corporate profile
- Introduced an in-house company system to strongly promote the AI business｜LINE’s corporate profile
- A new infrastructure experience through AI technology | LINE’s vision
- LINE’s strengths｜Development of a wide range of AI businesses
- We have a huge number of users with a wide range of services
- Merged with Yahoo Japan to become one of the largest internet companies in Japan
- AI technology brand “LINE CLOVA”
- Products
- Solutions
- Development of “HyperCLOVA”, the world’s first large-scale general-purpose language model specialized for Japanese
- Skill set that can be active on LINE
- Computer Vision Engineer/Researcher (Image Recognition Area)
- AI Engineer Researcher (AI Ethics)
- front end engineer
- MLOps Engineer
- Site Reliability Engineers (SREs)
- prototype engineer
- What kind of mind is required
- Lastly
Introduced an in-house company system to strongly promote the AI business｜LINE’s corporate profile
Before explaining LINE’s AI, let’s review the outline of LINE itself.
Due to the Great East Japan Earthquake that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, infrastructure such as telephones and emails became unusable. Triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake, NHN (currently LINE Corporation) felt the importance of communication tools, and on June 23, 2011, just three months after the earthquake, the idea of ”a line that connects people” was established. With this in mind, we will create the communication app “LINE”.
With 175 group companies, more than 200 domestic services, and approximately 23,000 group employees (including 6,500 engineers), we are an internet company group with originality that is unparalleled in the world through the management integration with Z Holdings Corporation. became a member.
Introduced an in-house company system to strongly promote the AI business｜LINE’s corporate profile
| company name | LINE Corporation |
| location | Yotsuya Office/23F Yotsuya Tower, 1-6-1 Yotsuya, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0004 |
| representative | President and CEO Takeshi Idezawa Representative Director and CWO Shin Junho |
| number of employees | 2,800 (LINE Corporation alone, as of October 31, 2021) 8,700 (LINE Group as a whole, as of October 31, 2021) |
| capital | 101,641 million yen (as of the end of September 2020) |
LINE introduced the in-house company system in February 2019, aiming for business growth by establishing in-house companies for each business area. The company system is a format in which a company with multiple businesses adopts a self-supporting accounting system for each business, positioning each business like a company and developing it.
LINE’s AI-specialized business is handled by the AI Company, which is characterized by its wide range of technologies, from natural language processing to image recognition such as text recognition, voice recognition , and voice synthesis. In addition to cooperation with family services, we are also expanding to B2B.
A new infrastructure experience through AI technology | LINE’s vision
Under the vision of “Life on LINE,” LINE is developing various services with the aim of becoming a life platform that supports all aspects of life 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
LINE’s official website lists AI as a technology necessary to achieve “Life on LINE.” In order to support the lives of users, it is important to create services that are optimized for each individual.
Therefore, by utilizing AI technology, LINE aims to create a new experience that fuses online and offline, and not just as a mere messaging app, but as a platform that is close to users’ daily lives.
LINE’s strengths｜Development of a wide range of AI businesses
What are LINE’s strengths in the AI business?
We have a huge number of users with a wide range of services
The strength of the communication app “LINE” is that it has a wide range of derivative services and has a huge number of users.
In addition to communication, LINE is developing BtoC services in a wide range of fields such as “LINE MUSIC”, “LINE part-time job”, “LINE LIVE”, “LINE Pay”, and “LINE Securities”. By seamlessly linking each service with LINE, it improves the user experience and is used by many users.
Merged with Yahoo Japan to become one of the largest internet companies in Japan
On March 1, 2021, LINE merged with Z Holdings (Yahoo’s parent company), and “New Z Holdings” was born. After the integration, the number of service users reached 300 million, and an Internet company representing Japan was born.
Through this business integration, we will not only focus on the core areas of search/portal, advertising, and messenger, but also focus on the four major social issues of commerce, local verticals,
AI technology brand “LINE CLOVA”
“LINE CLOVA” is LINE’s AI technology brand that provides technology and services to society.
Through AI technologies and services such as character recognition, image recognition , video analysis, speech synthesis, and voice recognition provided by LINE, we will eliminate the hassles hidden in life and business, and improve social functions and quality of life. , aims to bring a more convenient and prosperous world.
“LINE CLOVA” can be broadly classified into the following three categories.
| Products | A service that provides elemental technologies such as Chatbot, OCR, speech recognition , speech synthesis, image recognition (including face recognition). |
| Solutions | We combine AI elemental technologies and provide them as solutions to solve the problems/challenges of each business. For example, the telephone answering AI service “LINE AiCall” is a service that has been adopted not only by companies but also by public institutions. |
| Devices | Devices such as smart speakers equipped with LINE CLOVA’s AI assistant “CLOVA Assistant”. “CLOVA Assistant” is an AI assistant developed by LINE. Voice recognition and voice synthesis technology responds to various user requests, such as answering with appropriate skills (weather, fortune-telling, music playback, search, etc.). |
Products
CLOVA Chatbot
CLOVA Chatbot is a chatbot that uses technologies such as natural language processing, machine learning , and text mining.
In addition to the LINE service, it can be linked with various communication tools such as Facebook and its own website, making it highly versatile.
Message type of LINE Chatbot. Various types are implemented, such as a function that allows you to easily reply from a selection-type answer function. [Quote] LINE CLOVA official website
In addition, the latest machine learning model has been introduced to achieve a high accuracy rate. In addition, it supports other languages such as English, Chinese, and Korean, and is used for a wide range of purposes.
CLOVA OCR
CLOVA OCR is a character recognition service that quickly digitizes the text contained in any document or image, such as invoices and ID cards.
CLOVA OCR’s recognition system has been ranked No. 1 in the world in four fields by ICDAR (Conference on Text Analysis and Recognition). (As of March 29, 2019)
In addition to vertical and horizontal writing, characters can be read accurately even under adverse conditions such as curved letters, handwriting, and wrinkled paper.
The digitization of text greatly contributes to operational efficiency, such as improving the efficiency of customer service, and the increase in digital data also leads to the development of natural language processing technology.
CLOVA OCR’s strength is that it can be linked with various services through APIs and can be introduced flexibly.
CLOVA Speech
CLOVA Speech is a service that can accurately recognize speech even under adverse conditions such as noise. It supports not only Japanese but also foreign languages such as Korean, and boasts the world’s highest level of accuracy.
Real-time transcription of TV programs for which subtitles cannot be prepared in advance, and changing the destination even when both hands are occupied while driving are possible.
Other Products
In the future, we plan to offer the following products.
- CLOVA Voice (speech synthesis)
- CLOVA Face (face recognition)
- CLOVA Vision ( image recognition )
- CLOVA Text Analytics
Solutions
LINE AiCall
LINE AiCall is a service created by combining LINE CLOVA’s AI technology “CLOVA Speech” ( speech recognition ) and “CLOVA Voice” (speech synthesis technology). Realize natural interaction response by AI.
For example, LINE AiCall allows AI and humans to share work, realizing a call center that can receive calls 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. increase.
LINE eKYC
LINE eKYC is a highly accurate, highly secure, and smooth online identity verification solution.
Accuracy of AI technology is important to reduce the work of identity verification. In this service, “CLOVA OCR” is used to correctly read personal information and acquire information on identification cards that meet the screening criteria. It has been.
With LINE eKYC, we have streamlined the services of companies and local governments so far, and have made it possible to deliver more comfortable services to users.
Development of “HyperCLOVA”, the world’s first large-scale general-purpose language model specialized for Japanese
On November 25, 2020, LINE announced that it will work with NAVER to develop the world’s first large-scale general-purpose language model specializing in Japanese and build the infrastructure necessary for its processing.
A large-scale general-purpose language model enables natural language processing and language expression using AI.
In July 2021, we announced the project “HyperCLOVA,” which will work on the development of a large-scale general-purpose language model that is not limited to the future language field.
With conventional AI, engineers had to create a model for each use case and task (Q&A, dialogue, etc.).
However, “HyperCLOVA” is developing each model with general-purpose knowledge (= large-scale general-purpose language model), which is expected to eliminate the need for individual model generation.
The model in the language field that we are currently developing is planning to learn a huge amount of data of more than 175 billion parameters and more than 10 billion pages. output. We plan to proceed with the generation of general-purpose models in multiple fields such as languages and images.
Click here to learn more about the impact of large general-purpose language models.
Skill set that can be active on LINE
We are looking for people in various positions related to LINE AI Company, which is rapidly advancing AI research and development and implementation in services. We are recruiting for a wide range of occupations, such as those that can make use of experience in specialized fields such as natural language processing and image recognition, and those that bridge AI development with business utilization.
Computer Vision Engineer/Researcher (Image Recognition Area)
Business content
As an engineer and researcher, you will be in charge of research and development of computer vision (CV) technology.
What experience/skills are required
- Expertise in CV fields (image recognition, OCR, 3D/point cloud processing, etc.)
- R&D experience in machine learning (required for deep learning)
- Practical development experience using machine learning frameworks (PyTorch, Tensorflow, etc.)
- Ability to read and understand the latest professional papers and implement them quickly and accurately
what kind of experience you can have
- You can apply cutting-edge research results and be involved in the development of services that improve your everyday life.
- Since the team is in the start-up stage, it is possible to participate with discretion, including team structure and system creation.
- Comprised of an international team, you can experience a sense of penetration and unity
- An environment where you can conduct research and development jointly with highly specialized members (including NAVER) who have been selected at many top conferences.
AI Engineer Researcher (AI Ethics)
Business content
As an AI engineer/researcher (AI Ethics), you will be in charge of research/development of technologies related to reliable AI and machine learning.
What experience/skills are required
- Expertise in data science and machine learning
- Ability to perform processes such as data analysis and visualization, model derivation, system implementation, and performance evaluation
- Ability to read and understand the latest professional papers and implement them quickly and accurately
- Ability to analyze and propose models and systems based on an understanding of the business/business
what kind of experience you can have
- Through LINE’s AI business, we will be able to influence the lives of users and at the same time explore the reliability that “human-friendly AI” should have.
- Engage in cutting-edge technology development to ensure the reliability of AI, using AI technologies such as natural language processing, image processing, and voice recognition developed by LINE, and real products and services that apply them. I can
- It is a stimulating environment where researchers who aim to have their papers accepted at top conferences and engineers who aim to put cutting-edge technologies into practical use work together as one team.
front end engineer
Business content
You will be in charge of front-end development of various AI services provided by LINE CLOVA.
While collaborating with planners, designers, and server-side engineers, we will develop services while providing various opinions and proposals as a web development expert so that we can provide a better user experience.
What experience/skills are required
- More than 3 years of development experience as a front-end engineer
- Deep professional knowledge of HTML/ CSS /JavaScript
- SPA development experience using frameworks such as React and Vue
what kind of experience you can have
- LINE positions the AI business as a “strategic business” and is actively developing the business with the aim of becoming Asia’s No. 1 AI tech leader.
- Utilizing LINE’s AI technology such as natural language processing , character, image (including face recognition), voice recognition and voice synthesis, we can provide various services such as Chatbot, OCR, LINE AiCall, LINE eKYC for companies and local governments. You can be involved in AI product development.
MLOps Engineer
Business content
As an MLOps engineer, you will be in charge of building and maintaining the machine learning infrastructure to enable rapid development of machine learning models and application to actual services.
・Design/development/operation of machine learning workflow
・Construction/operation of CI/CD pipeline
・Construction/operation of service monitoring environment
What experience/skills are required
- 3+ years of server-side development experience (Languages: Java /Scala/ Python /Go/C/C++ etc.)
- Experience in developing and operating actual services using machine learning
what kind of experience you can have
LINE positions the AI business as a “strategic business” and is actively developing the business with the aim of becoming Asia’s No. 1 AI tech leader.
Utilizing LINE’s AI technology such as natural language processing , character, image (including face recognition), voice recognition and voice synthesis, we can provide various services such as Chatbot, OCR, LINE AiCall, LINE eKYC for companies and local governments. You can be involved in AI product development.
Site Reliability Engineers (SREs)
Business content
We are looking for an SRE who will lead the stable operation of the system and support the growth of the AI service provided by LINE CLOVA. In addition to tasks such as maintenance of application execution infrastructure and troubleshooting, you will be in charge of software development and operation for operation automation and development efficiency improvement.
What experience/skills are required
- Infrastructure/service operation experience using cloud such as Azure/AWS/GCP
- Development experience in either Java /Go/Python
- Business-level Japanese proficiency
what kind of experience you can have
LINE positions the AI business as a “strategic business” and is actively developing the business with the aim of becoming Asia’s No. 1 AI tech leader.
Utilizing LINE’s AI technology such as natural language processing , character, image (including face recognition), voice recognition and voice synthesis, we can provide various services such as Chatbot, OCR, LINE AiCall, LINE eKYC for companies and local governments. You can be involved in AI product development.
prototype engineer
Business content
Those who can design, develop, and commercialize prototypes to create new next-generation products using LINE’s various AI elemental technologies ( image recognition , voice processing, natural language processing, etc.) We are looking for.
What experience/skills are required
- Those who have experienced any of the following
- Web application or server development experience more than 2 years (Language: Java / Ruby / Python / Go etc.)
- More than 2 years of development experience as a front-end engineer
- Basic knowledge of computer science ( algorithms , data structures, databases, networks, etc.)
- Basic knowledge of HTML/ CSS /JavaScript
- Those who are interested in prototype development of services using AI technology
what kind of experience you can have
LINE positions the AI business as a “strategic business” and is actively developing the business with the aim of becoming Asia’s No. 1 AI tech leader.
Utilizing LINE’s AI technology such as natural language processing , character, image (including face recognition), speech recognition and speech synthesis, we can provide various services such as Chatbot, OCR, LINE AiCall, LINE eKYC, etc. for companies and local governments. You can be involved in the development of various AI products.
What kind of mind is required
The mindset required for working at LINE AI Company is as follows.
- High interest in new and unknown things
- The power to make diversity your friend
- power to outreach
- Adaptability to change. Flexibility to change plans
- Ability to learn new things, speed of aptitude
We must always be prepared to take on new challenges without being constrained by preconceived notions.
Lastly
This time, we introduced LINE Corporation AI Company.
LINE Corporation is a company that provides various services that are active in daily life, companies and local governments. I’m curious about how society will be updated by the further evolution of services with the completion of “HyperCLOVA”.
In The Players series, I write articles focused on AI-related companies. By comparing various AI companies, we may be able to see the laws of successful AI-related companies.
