Artificial Intelligence (AI) service specialist ESTsoft (CEO Jung Sang-won) announced on the 16th that it had announced the results of a participant satisfaction survey for the AI technology conference 'AI PLUS' it held last October.

The survey was conducted over two days, October 6th and 7th, during the event period, with the aim of surveying the satisfaction of the conference as well as the demand for artificial intelligence (hereinafter referred to as AI) and virtual human technology. The target was the approximately 3,000 industry stakeholders who participated in the conference, of which a total of 725 participated.

According to the survey results, it was revealed that the sessions that dealt with metaverse and virtual humans as core topics caught the attention of the participants at this conference. All of the top 5 sessions with high evaluation scores were conducted on the same topic. These sessions all recorded high scores of over 4.6 out of 5.

Specifically, the introduction sessions on AI and virtual human technology to be used in the metaverse, conducted respectively by ESTsoft seniors Kwon Taek-soon and Byun Hyeong-jin, and a session dealing with the daily life that will change to the metaverse by Unity Korea's Kim Bum-ju, all scored 4.7. These sessions were all conducted as keynotes. Additionally, a live talk show with YouTuber Taeyong (EO) and the presentation of metaverse industry trends and cases by Decharacter CEO Choi In-ho, under the theme 'How will AI and the metaverse change our lives?', were both included in the top 5 sessions with a score of 4.6.

Indeed, as the session evaluations show, the interest in adopting virtual humans in the industry was confirmed to be very high.

Approximately 55% of the participants, or 395 people, responded 'yes' to the question of whether they have 'plans to adopt or utilize a virtual human,' and about 28% of them, or 109 people, revealed that they plan to adopt the technology 'within a year.' In addition, 53 participants were confirmed to want immediate consultation from ESTsoft to introduce the technology.

Recently, ESTsoft has aggressively been presenting virtual humans that can be utilized in various environments, including the metaverse, using its own AI speech synthesis (TTS) and video synthesis (STF) technologies. In April, they introduced an AI announcer with a specialized news channel called YTN and became the first to exhibit an AI instructor with the educational company Hunet in October.

In response to the question about how to utilize virtual humans upon introduction, the metaverse came in first with 34.21% (248 people), followed by education with 20.14% (146 people), concierge with 17.66% (128 people), advertising/games/broadcasting with 10.90% (79 people), others with 8.97% (65 people), and games with 8.14% (59 people).

The overall satisfaction for the event was high, averaging 4.53 out of 5.

The satisfaction survey consisted of a total of four questions, among which 'the opportunity to acquire the latest knowledge on AI services and technology' scored the highest with 4.6. This was followed by 'the relevance of the agenda' with 4.58, 'the overall event experience' with 4.55, and 'the opportunity to acquire ideas that can be introduced in business' with 4.39.

To the question of whether they intend to participate in future conferences, 97% responded affirmatively, and 96% also said they would recommend the conference to acquaintances.

An ESTsoft official stated, "This survey was conducted to check the direction of future conference operations and to understand the needs of the industry," and added, "In the future, ESTsoft plans to actively propose key technologies needed in the era of metaverse, starting with leading the commercialization of virtual humans, and to continue to strengthen activities to read the market's demand for technology."