WIZ.AI Co-Founder Jianfeng Lu recently spoke with Bloomberg’s Saritha Rai to discuss how the company grew from an idea in Singapore in 2019 to a global player in AI. The company’s founding was driven by three factors: strong market potential, a mature voice AI ecosystem, and rapid technological progress. Fast forward to today, WIZ.AI has grown beyond its voice AI roots to offer a powerful large language model (LLM) platform. It now delivers generative AI-powered applications across Southeast Asia, the United States, Latin America, and the Middle East.
A Global AI Company from Day One
WIZ.AI’s decision to start in Singapore wasn’t random. Jianfeng shared that Singapore’s strategic location and government support were key. More importantly, the team wanted to build a global company from the start. “If you want to become a global startup, you must begin as a global startup,” Jianfeng said. Instead of focusing on beating competitors in local markets, WIZ.AI aimed to solve global customer needs. Singapore’s supportive environment made this ambition possible.
Finding Success in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia served as WIZ.AI’s early testing ground. The company was eager to prove it could deliver success stories and replicate them beyond the region. During this period, the team noticed that existing voice AI technology had a 40% error rate in customer use cases. This discovery pushed WIZ.AI to create its own voice AI tech, aiming for much better accuracy.
The journey was far from easy. Data collection was one big hurdle. In the early days, it took up to four months to complete data annotation. To speed this up, WIZ.AI developed a crowdsourcing platform and recruited people from various countries to handle the work. This change reduced the turnaround time to under three weeks. As a result, WIZ.AI made language and market expansion much more feasible.
Generative AI Takes WIZ.AI to the Next Level
Over the past five years, WIZ.AI has grown beyond Southeast Asia. It now works in the United States, Latin America, and the Middle East, providing AI solutions for industries like banking, finance, e-commerce, telecommunications, and healthcare. Alongside this expansion, WIZ.AI launched a domain-specific LLM with 13 billion parameters—the first of its kind in Southeast Asia.
As WIZ.AI continues to grow and evolve, the team remains dedicated to its core mission: using AI to tackle real-world problems and push the boundaries of technology across industries.
Recommended Reads:
- WIZ.AI Unveils Southeast Asia’s First Foundation Large Language Model (LLM)
- The Artificial General Intelligence Imperative: Crafting a competitive edge
- Reimagining Artificial Intelligence governance: AI as co-pilot
