[CEO Interview] Aplayz CEO Bae Jung Jin: “Play Every Space in the World”

The development of AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology has brought about significant changes across numerous industries. Among them, industries that provide personalized services based on user preferences and interests have been growing rapidly. Recently, services that recommend content users are likely to enjoy—driven by algorithms—have been expanding quickly in various fields such as music, video, and social media.

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So, what about music selection in offline stores where many people gather? We spoke with CEO Baek Jung-jin of APLAYZ, a company providing an innovative AI-based music service that reflects weather, space, and visitor characteristics through its self-developed spatial music curation engine.

- What kind of company is APLAYZ?

APLAYZ is an AI music-tech startup with a mission to enhance the value of both spaces and music. Under the slogan “PLAY Every Space in the World,” the company provides a service that automatically recommends and plays the most suitable music for each space by matching various spatial information with music data.

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The company originated as a spin-off from Hyundai Motor Group. After being selected by ZER01NE Company Builder, it went through about a year of incubation as an in-house startup before being spun off in early 2023. Within three months after the spin-off, APLAYZ was recognized for its growth potential and capabilities, being selected for the Early Startup Package and the TIPS program. Since then, it has received invitations to various exhibitions and has collaborated with companies across different industries. Together with its many partners, APLAYZ currently provides curated music content to various spaces.

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Through these efforts, APLAYZ aims to overcome the limitations of traditional music services that could not fully reflect the diverse characteristics of spaces, pioneering a new music consumption market with its differentiated, space-optimized music services.

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- Please explain your core business.

APLAYZ is a spatial music webcasting service capable of real-time music curation for each space. To offer a satisfying experience to diverse users within a space, the service collects and reflects various data such as atmosphere, user types, and preferences, as well as real-time factors like weather, time, temperature, and humidity—updating playlists accordingly in real time.

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When users first sign up, they enter basic information such as business type and music preferences. Based on this data, APLAYZ recommends suitable music and continuously updates playlists in real time according to time of day and weather. Moreover, it can collect information about the preferences and types of actual visitors, refining the curation process to better fit each situation. Users can also express their feedback through “like” or “dislike” options for currently playing music, which helps further personalize and enhance each space’s playlist.

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In this way, the company is dedicated to research and development aimed at providing customized music that truly reflects spatial characteristics. Currently, APLAYZ offers a store-specific service tailored for commercial spaces, a building solution for mixed-use facilities, and even an in-vehicle service for personal spaces—available via both web and mobile apps. The company also plans to expand into even more diverse spatial environments in the future.

- What was the background behind the creation of this service?

Personal streaming services cannot legally be used in public or commercial spaces. To use music legally in such spaces, one must rely on webcasting-based commercial music services. However, under the licensing framework for public-space music, it is technically challenging to curate playlists for each unique space. As a result, existing store music services typically use a set playlist that users can only choose from.

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This means that the same playlists—such as “music for rainy days” or “music for cafes”—tend to be repeated, and the same songs might play in completely different types of businesses simply because of weather-based categorization. Recognizing that music must reflect each space’s unique characteristics, APLAYZ developed its own customized service to overcome these limitations of traditional store music systems.

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- What are your future goals and directions?

As outdoor activities have increased in the post-pandemic era, our goal is to enrich people’s sensory experiences—especially their auditory experiences—within offline spaces, so that more people can appreciate the unique value each space provides.

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To achieve this, we aim to help space operators enhance their store’s value at reasonable costs, provide visitors with a better spatial experience, and improve in-car environments through optimized music that matches driving conditions—thus contributing to the perception of vehicles as valuable living spaces. Additionally, we want to help music creators’ works find the spaces where they fit best, thereby enhancing the value of music and expanding revenue opportunities for artists.

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Although many still view the music industry as a “red ocean,” we firmly believe that the music service market remains a “blue ocean.” As legal, space-tailored music services continue to grow, public awareness will shift, and the commercial music market will naturally expand over time.

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In the early 2000s, few people were willing to pay for music. But today, paid subscription-based streaming services have become the norm. Similarly, we believe a new era is dawning for public-space music services. Our ultimate goal is to “lead the spatial music service industry and complete the value chain of the music industry through technology that matches music and space,” and we will continue striving to achieve it.

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Reporter: Woojin Lee, bmw8034@nate.com

[[CEO Interview] APLAYZ CEO Baek Jung-jin: “PLAY Every Space in the World”], Siseon News, 2023-11-13

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