David J. Lee is Chief Working Officer (COO) and Chief Monetary Officer (CFO) for WEBTOON Leisure, the place he oversees world company, monetary and operations groups for WEBTOON, Wattpad, and Wattpad WEBTOON Studios. Mr. Lee can also be serving on the boards of WEBTOON Leisure. A seasoned shopper and know-how business government, he brings over 25 years of expertise throughout a wide range of finance management roles.
Previous to WEBTOON, David was the CEO of Inevitable Tech whereas serving on public firm boards for AppHarvest, Benson Hill, and Zevia. Beforehand, he was the COO & CFO of Unimaginable Meals, the place he efficiently led the corporate’s launch of the Unimaginable Burger and its nationwide distribution.
WEBTOON is the world’s largest digital comics platform, residence to a few of the greatest artists, IP, and fandoms in comics. As the worldwide chief and pioneer of the cell webcomic format, WEBTOON has revolutionized the comics business for comedian followers and creators. At this time, a various new technology of worldwide comedian artists have discovered a house on WEBTOON, the place the corporate’s storytelling know-how permits anybody to turn out to be a creator and construct a world viewers for his or her tales.
How does WEBTOON strategy the moral growth of AI, significantly in gentle of issues from artists about AI doubtlessly changing human creativity?
At WEBTOON, our strategy to AI is centered round enhancing, not changing, human creativity. Creators are on the heart of every little thing we do – their success is our success. In consequence, it’s essential that we prioritize moral AI growth to make sure our instruments assist creators with out undermining their inventive imaginative and prescient or livelihood. We use AI to spice up productiveness, improve creativity and safeguard creators’ work. With over 24 million creators globally, our mission is to democratize storytelling and assist Creators generate profits, not automate the inventive course of.
Are you able to elaborate on how instruments like Shaper and Constella are designed to help creators with out compromising their inventive integrity? What particular suggestions from creators led to the event of those instruments?
First off, these are instruments nonetheless in growth. Once we’re constructing new know-how to assist the inventive course of, it’s essential that we take our time, seek the advice of with creators, and perceive how these improvements can truly make their lives simpler.
Like all of our instruments, Shaper and Constella have been constructed with a creator-first mindset. We all know that our creators dedicate large quantities of time to creating webcomics for readers to take pleasure in, and these instruments can assist streamline their course of, with out compromising the distinctive inventive type of every creator. For instance, a lot of our creators have indicated that their biggest ache level is the repetitive sketching concerned in serialized content material, like when a personality adjustments a pose or clothes and the artist wants to start out the sketch from scratch. Whereas nonetheless within the testing part, Shaper permits creators to construct 3D character fashions to be able to change a personality’s poses seamlessly and with out the necessity to sketch every pose. One other experimental product, Constella, powered by proprietary AI know-how, will enable conversion of those 3D character fashions in varied poses to pure trying 2D characters within the creator’s personal drawing type. Used collectively, creators can considerably scale back drawing time in comparison with guide strategies. And as creators are free-up from a few of the labor intensive duties that go into making a webcomic, we’re empowering them to spend extra time storytelling and creating the wealthy and distinctive worlds that readers love.
With AI being more and more built-in into inventive workflows, how does WEBTOON make sure that artists’ mental property is protected, particularly within the context of AI-generated content material?
Defending creators’ IP is one in all our prime priorities. Our AI-powered anti-piracy instrument, Toon Radar, actively combats unauthorized use of our creators’ work by embedding invisible person identification knowledge into webcomic photos to assist block unlawful uploads. Along with our AI-powered anti-piracy work on the platform, we additionally led the cost in combating piracy in 2024, taking authorized motion in opposition to pirate websites everywhere in the world.
How are WEBTOON’s AI fashions skilled? Are there measures in place to make sure that the AI instruments do not inadvertently use artwork or content material from creators with out consent?
This can be a nice query and actually will get to the core of our moral and Creator-centric strategy to innovation. We’ve skilled our AI fashions utilizing knowledge units which might be within the public area or licensed below inventive widespread licenses. As a matter of firm coverage, we don’t use WEBTOON titles to coach our AI fashions with out creator consent. It’s additionally essential to notice that we don’t promote any person or content material knowledge to 3rd events to coach AI fashions.
How do you see AI evolving within the inventive business? Do you envision AI ultimately changing into an indispensable instrument for artists, or are there issues about it decreasing the necessity for human enter?
There’s an extended historical past of know-how altering how individuals create. It wasn’t that way back that comedian artists did all of their work on paper pages. However as we speak most artists use some form of digital sketching instrument.
We take into consideration that form of technological evolution after we’re constructing new instruments. Artwork and human imaginative creation and storytelling are why we exist as an organization. Our founder Junkoo Kim began WEBTOON as a result of he’s a passionate lifelong fan of comedian artwork and artists. So something we do goes to assist these issues: we’re right here to assist individuals make and share unimaginable artwork.
But it surely’s additionally clear that AI goes to have a serious influence on each business – and the way corporations strategy AI will probably be seen as a selection between utilizing this know-how to decrease or uplift inventive communities. Whereas know-how might be able to assist sure repetitive or time-sensitive duties, the guts of creation – storytelling, originality, and a webcomic creators’ artists type – will at all times come from people. At WEBTOON, our purpose is to make sure that we’re investing in AI know-how that helps creators, whereas maintaining the inventive course of firmly of their arms.
With instruments like Shaper and Constella decreasing drawing time, how does WEBTOON keep a steadiness between enhancing effectivity for artists and preserving the individuality of their work?
This is a crucial situation for us and for all Artistic Industries. A comic book is a gigantic quantity of labor, and it’s arduous to actually perceive what goes right into a web page. A reader sees a number of panels, some dialogue, and delightful photos. However all of that takes plenty of effort and time! Coloring is a process unto itself in making comics. That stunning web page exploding with colour doesn’t simply occur. It’s an extended, exact, and deliberate course of. If we can assist make that course of simpler for a Creator and scale back time spent, that’s a win.
That is the form of mindset we deliver to all of our improvements. Actually, we’re at present experimenting with an AI Painter Software, that’s aimed toward decreasing coloring time. All of our improvements are about offering instruments that may make a creator’s life simpler, so it may be simpler for artists to make artwork and inform tales. Shaper and Constella assist in related methods, making creators’ processes simpler and decreasing how a lot time they spend on completely different components of their storytelling.
In what methods do you consider AI can assist artists push the boundaries of their creativity? Are you able to share examples the place AI has already led to surprising inventive improvements?
That’s actually not how we take into consideration AI. Artists already make universes with their work. We host hundreds of thousands of comics on our platform and the creativity I’ve seen is boundless. Creativity doesn’t want AI to assist it push boundaries, and we depart artwork to artists.
However AI and know-how can assist an artist’s course of, and that’s the place we will be useful. If we can assist an artist scale back the period of time they must spend on part of their work that looks like work, that’s an ideal end result and use case for AI and the strategy we’re taking at WEBTOON.
Past Shaper and Constella, how do you see AI shaping the way forward for WEBTOON’s platform and the broader inventive business? Are there any upcoming AI initiatives you possibly can share?
Past creator productiveness, we all know that AI goes to play a giant function in the way forward for content material discovery. WEBTOON continues to speculate on this space and we lately launched a brand new model of our AI-powered content material advice mannequin in Korea, which notably elevated person engagement within the months following its launch. Greater reader engagement helps artists thrive, obtain widespread assist, and make a residing doing what they love. Utilizing AI to achieve followers in higher methods additionally helps construct fan communities and, doubtlessly, opens doorways to different variations on Netflix, and so on.
With AI persevering with to advance, many artists are involved about being changed or their work being stolen. How does WEBTOON plan to handle these issues and foster a collaborative relationship between know-how and creators?
Everywhere in the inventive industries, artists are involved about misuse and theft of their mental property. And like TV, movie, and different inventive industries, as webcomics have grown in reputation, so has piracy on-line. Webcomics take vital quantities of time and dedication to supply, so it’s extremely disheartening when these supplies are stolen on the artist’s expense. We’ve got at all times been dedicated to safeguarding artists’ rights, which incorporates stringent insurance policies and technological options – like Toon Radar – that actively combats unauthorized use of our creators’ work.
To foster collaboration, we see AI as a instrument for our artists, not a alternative. AI can tackle repetitive duties or assist streamline manufacturing processes, permitting creators to deal with what actually issues—their distinctive storytelling and inventive voice. By offering AI instruments that help with duties like scene technology, colorization, and even interactive content material growth, we intention to present creators extra time to innovate and push the boundaries of their craft.
In the end, our purpose is to construct a future the place know-how enhances creativity, with creators firmly answerable for their inventive imaginative and prescient, and AI as an enabler of latest prospects quite than a menace.
Thanks for the nice interview, readers who want to study extra ought to go to WEBTOON.
