NOTE: For readers outside of Korea, YBM is one of the oldest and largest private education conglomerates in South Korea. Founded in 1961, YBM has maintained its legacy as the leading private English learning institution in Korea, offering a wide range of services across various sectors like language training, standardized test preparation, and educational publishing.

Translated from the original news article (https://www.etnews.com/20240131000071):

Theta One Korea, Inc. announced that it has signed a joint research and development contract with YBM for jointly developing AI speech processing EdTech technology. Through this agreement, YBM and Theta One Korea, Inc. aim to advance their AI technologies to an outstanding level by utilizing a vast amount of learning data.

Both Theta One and YBM are planning new services utilizing generative AI technology. In particular, Theta One operates the conversational AI English language learning app, 'Metabuddy, whose core competitive edge is its "English conversation experience." Conversations with its AI companions are engaging and fun, and its proprietary AI voice recognition technology is fast and accurate. Just three months after its official launch, Metabuddy is experiencing a high conversion rate to paid subscriptions and continues to grow by 51% monthly, mostly through organic traffic. With this research, both companies aim to showcase faster and more accurate voice recognition technology. Meanwhile, YBM plans to enhance the utility of its products by supplementing the technology needed for children's English learning.