3/9/2023

• Upstage launches AskUp, a "ChatGPT with eyes," utilizing own OCR technology, and gains 30,000 subscribers on KakaoTalk within three days

• AskUp provides the best answer with natural conversation through prompt tuning and fine-tuning through Upstage's OCR technology integrated with ChatGPT

• From March 9 to March 16, Upstage is offering a special event for KakaoTalk AskUp users to engage in up to 100 free conversations per day

(Seoul, Mar. 9, 2023 /Upstage) Upstage released AskUp, a ChatGPT-integrated chatbot to the general public.

Upstage, the leading AI startup in Korea, has launched AskUp on KakaoTalk, the nation's most popular mobile messenger platform. With the integration of Upstage's optical character recognition (OCR) technology with ChatGPT, AskUp has already gained 30,000 followers through word-of-mouth within just three days of its release.

AskUp is a sophisticated "ChatGPT with eyes," utilizing Upstage's OCR technology to read and understand the contents of documents, images, or handwriting submitted by users. Accessing AskUp is straightforward, as users can search for the AskUp channel on KakaoTalk or visit https://askup.upstage.ai.

Upstage's OCR technology accurately identifies characters, regardless of font or background, allowing users to take advantage of OCR-powered AskUp to process translated documents or handwritten text in KakaoTalk chatroom. Additionally, users can inquire about various documents, including study materials, business registration certificates, and contracts, and acquire necessary information or process them as text.

In order to expand the AI ecosystem and allow the public to utilize it, Upstage expanded AskUp, which was used by Upstage interns, to mobile messengers such as KakaoTalk and Line. Kim Seong-hoon, CEO of Upstage, said, “We believe that the use of AI by all citizens will be a national competitive edge in the AI era. To increase usability, we combined it with Upstage OCR pack technology so that everyone can use it, and it can be used by simply adding a KakaoTalk channel. “We opened it so that we can do it,” he added.

AskUp goes beyond ChatGPT's capabilities. Using Upstage's prompt-tuning know-how, AskUp processes images with OCR and sends the result and message to ChatGPT along with a combination of special prompts and context-based questions to provide the best answer.

Furthermore, AskUp can be fine-tuned based on user-specific questions to gradually develop conversations that match the user's personality, just like making friends in real life. For instance, AskUp recommends appropriate attire or activities with information about the current location's weather when asked, "What's the weather like today?" If someone says, "I'm in a good mood today," AskUp may ask why or offer congratulations, displaying various responses.

In the future, Upstage plans to integrate its RecSys Pack and utilize various technologies such as 'Seargest' (search & suggest) to develop long-term memory and implement a function that recommends necessary information from past conversations. For example, AskUp will refer to previous conversations to provide an answer when a user asks a question such as "Where was the barbecue party held last fall?"

To leverage the popularity of KakaoTalk AskUp, Upstage is offering a special limited-time event. Users who add the KakaoTalk AskUp channel until March 16th can use up to 100 free sessions per day. While AskUp limits users to 100 sessions per month, subscribers during the event period can engage in up to 100 conversations per day.

Upstage CEO Sung Kim said, "AskUp demonstrates the potential for communication and collaboration between AI and humans. We want many people to experience AI in a convenience and fun manner. Upstage will lower the hurdles for AI utilization in daily life and lead the democratization of AI for the entire nation in the era of AI."

With the AI Pack, Upstage assists customers in customizing three AI technologies simultaneously: OCR technology, recommendation technology that takes into account customer information and product/service characteristics, and natural language processing (NLP) that enables meaning-based search. The Upstage AI Pack not only simplifies data processing, AI modeling, and indicator management, but also supports continuous updates and makes it easy to stay up-to-date with the latest AI technology.

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