The Exchanges

Q So how do you do that? Because that's an interesting, you know, your ability to figure out how old people are is an interesting.

A Yes. So, so we are using AI. Uh, we have a, uh, a partner called Yoti that provide a third party API that we are using, and you will enter, you will enter a date of birth when you sign up, but we want to be sure that you enter the right date of birth. So we are going to scan your face and estimate your age to compare it with the date of birth you enter. And if it matches the date of birth, then you can enter the platform. If it doesn't match, then we will ask you to provide more detail, like identity documents, a video of yourself, to ensure that this is you, you are the real person, and this is your real age, to ensure that you will go in the right age group. Because in real life, and when you, you, you, you meet new people, usually they are from the same age.

AI assessment note: “we are using AI. Uh, we have a, uh, a partner called Yoti”

Q And let's talk a little bit more about social media. Is it interesting to you that it's sort of trended away from the newsfeed interactions or like posting on people's wall towards a more of a TikTok style feed? I mean, that is, it's interesting that it's even become more media and less social. What do you think about that trend?

A Yeah, it's true. It's true. Yeah. I think it mainly because of their business model, where they want you to, to spend as many time as you can watching ads, basically. And so the more you watch content and videos that are interesting for you, the more you will stay on the platform. And this is really linked to their ad business model. And this is exactly. Why we didn't go to the other business model on our side and why we have a very different business model, which is through in-app purchases and subscription. And I also think that those platforms are more now like TV, like media, like brand. Where you don't really connect anymore with people and with your network, which is why people feel more and more lonely in those days.

AI assessment note: “I think it mainly because of their business model, where they want you to”

Q And so when I'm in the product, how do I end up connecting with different people, joining group chats, joining one-on-one chats?

A So it's exactly like in real life. So let's say that you enter in a festival or in a bar where everyone wants to socialize, what would happen? You would have a small group of people that will be together naturally, naturally speaking about a different subject, speaking about their interests, speaking about a movie or debating, and it's exactly the same on the platform. So you can see A list of group of people based on their profile, based on the topic of the conversation, based on their interest, and as in real life, you can enter in the room, you can listen to what they are saying, and they can invite you to join the conversation right away, and you can start interacting with video, audio, and chat, everything in real time, and this is working great because 95% of rooms have only streamers that are speaking together, and it's on average four to five people that are speaking together, exactly like it would be at a festival where people are just discovering each other and speaking as a group.

AI assessment note: “you can see A list of group of people... you can enter in the room”

Q Right. And that being able to connect within a minute is a, is a promise that you make, right? Effectively you, you log in within a minute, you can be speaking with others.

A Yeah. Even, even within seconds, like you can just sign up and you can just go in the, in the room key and you can click in a room and start speaking with someone. You can create your own room and start speaking with someone. You can send requests to people and start speaking with someone in private. So it can be in real time. It can be also, uh, as a chat and you will receive a ton of messages from, from people. And this is. This is how it works. So we want you to spend time on your phone and on the platform, but by being active and by having conversation and discovering yourself and the world by discussing with other people and not by being passive and just waiting in front of your phone and sliding where this is, because this is why people are feeling Lonely because they are passive. They don't speak with other people. And at some point at the end of the, of the day, when you go out of those platforms, you feel bad about yourself because you said, I didn't do nothing. And I was one hour watching videos and, and what did I learn? But when you've done meaningful conversation with a group of people and that have the same interest, when you learn seeing, when you learn new, Things about new people and their history and their life. Then you feel good about yourself at the, at the end, you know?

AI assessment note: “Yeah. Even, even within seconds, like you can just sign up”

Q that play Fortnite. So it's a very counterintuitive insight, right? In terms of the way that you want to handle this. How did you come to that? And why, why is it, why is it working? Because, you know, you look at the Platforms with the biggest scale, and it seems like that influencer model is working so well for them, but it leaves people a little bit empty, right?

A Yeah, exactly. And to be honest, we don't have any influencer on our platform because it won't work for influencers to come on Yubo. And we even tried to bring them at some point to test some marketing channel and user acquisition, but they were of no interest for them to use our platform because as it's a small group of people speaking together and the board is for you to speak with other people in one-on-one or in a group. There is no point for new friends to come out on our platform because they won't have an audience and there is no way to review the content. There is no like, there is no followers, which is very different. So I would say that we are doing exactly the opposite of what actual social network is doing. There is no performance. It's all about individual behavior. There is no like, no view, no comments. It's all about real time interactions. And it's not about individual behavior like on social network. It's about group behavior, because this is how the society works today. Everything is about group behavior. When you are meeting new people, when you are going to work, when you are going to school, to college, everything is done by group. And this is exactly how we are thinking about the product and how we are working on it. We want our users to be able to connect within a minute. To new people and to start talking with them as much as they can.

AI assessment note: “we don't have any influencer on our platform because it won't work for influencers”

Q is, is artificial intelligence. You've brought it up a little bit in terms of using computer vision to assess the ages of the people that are signing up and put them in cohorts. I imagine there's an AI safety, uh, uh, element that you have as well. Uh, would love to hear about how you're using AI for safety. And then also, does it combine into your discovery at all?

A Yeah. So, so to be honest, in, in the background, we use AI everywhere. So mostly on the safety, also on the recommendation part, and, and also, uh, for, for, for some pain feature that I will speak about a bit, a bit later, but let's start with safety. So everything that is visual, texture, and audio is scanned by algorithm that which flag the bad content to our safety specialist. To either automatically delete the bad content or help our safety specialists to investigate. It's very fancy to do on the, on the platform. We also use AI proactively. For example, if you want to send your phone number privately to someone on our platform, we will warn you to say, Hey, this is a private information. Are you sure you want to share this information? Because at some point it can be dangerous if you, if you, if you do that. And so we use AI for that. We also use AI and Gen AI for a specific feature we have on the platform called Pixels. So Pixels is basically a feature where you can offer pixel art to other users so they can put those pixel art in their profile. And before Generative AI, we, we were asking artists to Create, uh, those pixels, and we have collection every month with the artists, and, and now we are using generative AI to create new collection every, every month, uh, which is, uh, very powerful. Uh, we are gaining a lot of time, and, um, we are capable of creating much mo…

AI assessment note: “mostly on the safety, also on the recommendation part”