Dr. Nguyen Tho Chuong, Technology Director of AI Hay JSC: Aspiration to lead the AI ​​wave in Vietnam

Vietnamese National AI Platform

"We believe that AI is not just for experts or large corporations. AI must start from the most familiar things, such as helping a student research better, a lecturer teach more effectively. When knowledge is expanded, the future of the country will also be more open," Dr. Nguyen Tho Chuong, representative of the founding team of AI Hay, sincerely shared about the start-up's mission.

Launched in mid-2024, AI Hay is an application that helps users look up any information and receive verified answers. According to Dr. Nguyen Tho Chuong, the authenticity of the information is a plus point in the AI ​​Hay model. Not only stopping at providing answers, the platform also attaches reference links so that users can easily access original documents and research further if needed.

With the characteristic of an AI model designed by a founding team of all Vietnamese people, aiming to serve the Vietnamese community, AI Hay understands the user's intention accurately, especially when each person has a different way of asking questions, depending on age, situation and language style. For example, young people often use flexible language, influenced by trends and natural expressions, sometimes somewhat disjointed. Meanwhile, working people or older people often have a more formal and coherent way of expressing themselves.

What do you think about students being dependent on AI, like AI Hay, without thinking?

  It is inevitable that some students will rely on AI and not think much, but this is what happened when the Internet was born. At that time, many people worried that finding information too easily would make people lazy to think. However, the whole world is still moving in that direction, and the important thing is how to make effective use of technology.
Instead of letting Vietnamese users continue to depend on foreign products, we want to have a Vietnamese product that is good enough to support them.
How specifically, sir?
With AI Hay, we do not want to create a tool that completely replaces human thinking, but AI becomes a companion, a real assistant that helps users understand the nature of the problem.
For example, if a student encounters a difficult math problem, instead of just receiving a ready-made answer, you can ask AI Hay to explain it step by step, or even say: "I don't understand this solution, please explain it to me in a different way." In this case, AI Hay acts as a tutor, supporting learning, instead of making the student passive.
The key is not to avoid AI, but to learn how to use AI intelligently and proactively.

“The challenge is how AI can capture the true intent of users, regardless of how they express it. This is the strength of AI Hay - a language processing platform specifically designed for Vietnamese culture. Thanks to that, AI Hay can accurately understand users' needs and respond in the most appropriate way,” the start-up representative emphasized.

Although it was born after many other AI platforms in the world and has been present in the market for less than a year, AI Hay has been rapidly expanding its number of users. The application has recorded over 10 million downloads, becoming the Vietnamese AI platform with the largest number of users today.

Dr. Nguyen Tho Chuong revealed that more than half of AI Hay users are young people, focusing oneducational purposes. In the early days, students often came to AI Hay to look up information and, more importantly, to help with homework. The founding team received a lot of feedback from users, especially those who were not good at studying, that they did not dare to ask teachers or friends. However, since AI Hay was available, they have had their own "tutor", freely asking and answering questions without hesitation.

Later, when seeing their children and siblings using AI Hay to solve their homework, many parents were curious to try it out. They gradually realized that AI Hay not only supports learning, but also helps look up information in other fields. Thanks to that, the application gradually expanded its user base naturally without spending much on marketing.

At present, AI Hay is free for users to experience and find value from the product. In the near future, the application will launch a Pro package (paid) with many advanced features, helping users perform more complex tasks, personalized for each user. Instead of having to enter information from the beginning each time, the system will remember the search history, interests and needs of each person, thereby making the usage process more convenient.

The startup representative said that they will donate AI Pro accounts to many schools across Vietnam, making AI Hay a trusted application in the education sector. “We always hope to popularize AI to more people, not only in big cities, but also in other rural areas, helping young people access knowledge more easily. This is a huge value that AI in general and AI Hay in particular can bring,” emphasized Dr. Nguyen Tho Chuong.

Seize the opportunity in the AI ​​wave

When the Internet and computers became popular, Vietnam had FPT as a pioneer. When smartphones and mobile Internet exploded, VNG seized the opportunity with Zalo. And with the current AI wave, the founding team of AI Hay believes that it is time for them to seize the opportunity.

Dr. Nguyen Tho Chuong, along with his two co-founders, Tran Quang Duc and Nguyen Hoang Hiep, are all young intellectuals who studied and worked in the US. During this process, they realized the fact that most AI platforms are designed to serve international users, but Vietnamese people do not have a truly "purely Vietnamese" and trustworthy AI tool to support their learning and research.

From that concern, the three of them cherished a simple but meaningful dream, which is to popularize AI, build a Generative AI application exclusively for Vietnamese people, especially the young generation - those who are and will build the future of the country.

With a solid foundation of experience in building large-scale technology products (CEO Tran Quang Duc and CTO Nguyen Tho Chuong used to work at Zalo), they decided to establish AI Hay in 2022. However, the early days were always accompanied by countless difficulties. Dr. Nguyen Tho Chuong said that they managed with a team of 10 people; no one had to sell their house or car, but everyone accepted the sacrifice, only taking home a salary equivalent to 1/3, 1/4 of the market value. They also raised capital many times and received countless head shakes, even though co-founder Nguyen Hoang Hiep had experience working at a foreign investment fund.

Above all, the belief in a reliable, purely Vietnamese AI platform that helps Vietnamese people access global knowledge in the easiest way has motivated the founding team to persevere and move forward.

Surpassing 4,700 startups worldwide, in September 2024, AI Hay was one of three representatives from the entire Southeast Asia region selected by Amazon to support development, along with a support package of up to more than 25 billion VND from AWS - a subsidiary of Amazon specializing in providing cloud computing services. AI Hay is also one of nine Vietnamese startups present at the NVIDIA Inception Program - a program that helps startups accelerate their development and increase their access to the latest technology resources from NVIDIA.

Although the start-up has achieved some successes, Dr. Nguyen Tho Chuong affirmed that everything is just beginning. AI Hay is still continuing its journey of contributing to a purely Vietnamese AI future. The application focuses on developing well in the Vietnamese market and has no intention of expanding internationally. “Five years from now, when there is any question, people will not only think of Google, but will ask AI Hay. Just like Zalo is available on most phones in Vietnam, we want AI Hay to become a familiar application like that,” the start-up representative emphasized.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/ts-nguyen-tho-chuong-giam-doc-cong-nghe-ctcp-ai-hay-khat-vong-dan-dau-lan-song-ai-tai-viet-nam-d256036.html