"Creating AI Used by a Billion People"...Jinwoo Kim, CEO of Riner

[Financial News] “Among AI startups, there are very few that have created services that people actually use. We believe we are one of the few teams that have achieved this.”
Jinwoo Kim, CEO of Riner (photo), is developing an AI search service that prioritizes 'trust' over technology. Amidst the emergence of numerous generative AI services, he focused Riner on the single principle of 'most accurate search'. The goal is to build AI that users can trust and utilize by transparently presenting sources and logic.
In an interview with Financial News on the 14th, CEO Kim stated, "The biggest reason people do not trust AI's answers is the lack of explanation for why such answers were given," emphasizing that "Riner provides both accurate sources and the logic leading to them."
In fact, Riner revealed a new BI in May, reinforcing its brand identity as 'accurate AI search'. The goal is to strengthen Riner's unique strength of 'accuracy' in the AI search market, where various services are mixed.
Riner emphasizes 'trustworthy AI search' and 'precise source at the sentence level' as core values. Each sentence in the search results is provided with a clear source, allowing users to directly verify the validity of the information through citation links, quotes, and previews, which is especially well-received by university students, doctoral researchers, and professionals.
To achieve this, Riner is focusing resources on maximizing accuracy. CEO Kim said, “AI has a higher hallucination rate than expected. GPT-4.5 scored 60 points on the factual verification benchmark, while Riner scored 95.3 points. Riner's greatest strength is accuracy. We aim to achieve 'zero hallucination' and create a search that never makes mistakes."
To implement such accuracy, documents with high reliability are selected for training. Data sources consist of open web, papers, and public financial information, with plans to expand to patent and market research data.

He said, “The problem is not a lack of data, but too much of it," adding, "Deciding what to use and what to filter out is key to determining accuracy." In other words, the biggest challenge is deciding which documents to reference for accurate answers among the vast internet information. This is also why Riner analyzes where users stay longer and which sources they click on.
He explained, "Due to errors in AI services, users tend not to trust AI's answers as they are. However, if the source is authoritative and trustworthy, this trust increases. Especially by showing the process of presenting the answer, i.e., the logic, trust also increases. Therefore, Riner has tried to strengthen authority and logic within the product, and is differentiating the product by listing sources prominently and showing the exposure of the process in a detailed and lengthy manner."
CEO Kim cites 'agent' and 'user convenience' as the core keywords of the AI industry this year. His theory is that technological advancement alone is not enough. CEO Kim said, “People are increasingly delegating tasks they have to do themselves to AI. However, the current use of AI is not easy. To get the desired answer, the question must also be sophisticated, and more thought, time, and effort are needed to find information than before." Accordingly, Riner is experimenting with an optimized response structure according to question types. Fact-type questions are concise, comparison-type questions are in tables, and when visual information is advantageous, it is composed mainly of images or videos.
Regarding the recent strengthening of government AI policies, he positively evaluated it but also called for policies that can enhance service competitiveness. CEO Kim pointed out, “Korea is a country where native platforms like Naver and Kakao endure even when Google or WhatsApp enter," adding, "Currently, support is focused on hardware such as LLM and semiconductors, which is somewhat regrettable. Service competitiveness is about changing people's habits, and that is the most difficult and sustainable area."
Meanwhile, the domestic startup Riner is focusing on expanding its business mainly in the US, Japan, and Europe, rather than domestically. CEO Kim said, “Unlike Korea, where general and popular services work well, in the global market, very specialized, precisely targeted services survive," adding, "The AI search market is still in its early stages. Reaching more people quickly is Riner's core goal."
What he hopes for is for Riner to grow as a service actually used by hundreds of millions of people. He said, “I want to create a service used by more than a billion people a month. The goal is to become the first tool people turn to in their daily lives and work."




yjjoe@fnnews.com Yoonju Cho, Reporter