David J. Lee is Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for WEBTOON Entertainment, where he oversees global corporate, financial and operations teams for WEBTOON, Wattpad, and Wattpad WEBTOON Studios. Mr. Lee can also be serving on the boards of WEBTOON Entertainment. A seasoned consumer and technology industry executive, he brings over 25 years of experience across a wide range of finance leadership roles.
Prior to WEBTOON, David was the CEO of Inevitable Tech while serving on public company boards for AppHarvest, Benson Hill, and Zevia. Previously, he was the COO & CFO of Unimaginable Foods, where he successfully led the corporate’s launch of the Unimaginable Burger and its nationwide distribution.
WEBTOON is the world’s largest digital comics platform, home to among the biggest artists, IP, and fandoms in comics. As the worldwide leader and pioneer of the mobile webcomic format, WEBTOON has revolutionized the comics industry for comic fans and creators. Today, a various recent generation of international comic artists have found a house on WEBTOON, where the corporate’s storytelling technology allows anyone to develop into a creator and construct a worldwide audience for his or her stories.
How does WEBTOON approach the moral development of AI, particularly in light of concerns from artists about AI potentially replacing human creativity?
At WEBTOON, our approach to AI is centered around enhancing, not replacing, human creativity. Creators are at the middle of all the pieces we do – their success is our success. In consequence, it’s crucial that we prioritize ethical AI development to make sure our tools support creators without undermining their artistic vision or livelihood. We use AI to spice up productivity, enhance creativity and safeguard creators’ work. With over 24 million creators globally, our mission is to democratize storytelling and help Creators make cash, not automate the creative process.
Are you able to elaborate on how tools like Shaper and Constella are designed to help creators without compromising their artistic integrity? What specific feedback from creators led to the event of those tools?
First off, these are tools still in development. After we’re constructing recent technology to support the creative process, it’s necessary that we take our time, seek the advice of with creators, and understand how these innovations can actually make their lives easier.
Like all of our tools, Shaper and Constella were built with a creator-first mindset. We all know that our creators dedicate tremendous amounts of time to creating webcomics for readers to enjoy, and these tools may help streamline their process, without compromising the unique artistic form of each creator. For instance, a lot of our creators have indicated that their best pain point is the repetitive sketching involved in serialized content, like when a personality changes a pose or clothing and the artist needs to start out the sketch from scratch. While still within the testing phase, Shaper allows creators to construct 3D character models in an effort to change a personality’s poses seamlessly and without the necessity to sketch each pose. One other experimental product, Constella, powered by proprietary AI technology, will allow conversion of those 3D character models in various poses to natural looking 2D characters within the creator’s own drawing style. Used together, creators can significantly reduce drawing time in comparison with manual methods. And as creators are free-up from among the labor intensive tasks that go into making a webcomic, we’re empowering them to spend more time storytelling and creating the wealthy and unique worlds that readers love.
With AI being increasingly integrated into creative workflows, how does WEBTOON be certain that artists’ mental property is protected, especially within the context of AI-generated content?
Protecting creators’ IP is one among our top priorities. Our AI-powered anti-piracy tool, Toon Radar, actively combats unauthorized use of our creators’ work by embedding invisible user identification data into webcomic images to assist block illegal uploads. Along with our AI-powered anti-piracy work on the platform, we also led the charge in fighting piracy in 2024, taking legal motion against pirate sites all around the world.
How are WEBTOON’s AI models trained? Are there measures in place to be certain that the AI tools don’t inadvertently use art or content from creators without consent?
That is an amazing query and really gets to the core of our ethical and Creator-centric approach to innovation. We’ve trained our AI models using data sets which can be in the general public domain or licensed under creative common licenses. As a matter of company policy, we don’t use WEBTOON titles to coach our AI models without creator consent. It’s also necessary to notice that we don’t sell any user or content data to 3rd parties to coach AI models.
How do you see AI evolving within the creative industry? Do you envision AI eventually becoming an indispensable tool for artists, or are there concerns about it reducing the necessity for human input?
There’s a protracted history of technology changing how people create. It wasn’t that way back that comic artists did all of their work on paper pages. But today most artists use some form of digital sketching tool.
We take into consideration that type of technological evolution after we’re constructing recent tools. Art and human imaginative creation and storytelling are why we exist as an organization. Our founder Junkoo Kim began WEBTOON because he’s a passionate lifelong fan of comic art and artists. So anything we do goes to support those things: we’re here to assist people make and share incredible art.
However it’s also clear that AI goes to have a significant impact on every industry – and the way firms approach AI can be seen as a selection between using this technology to diminish or uplift creative communities. While technology may give you the chance to support certain repetitive or time-sensitive tasks, the center of creation – storytelling, originality, and a webcomic creators’ artists style – will all the time come from humans. At WEBTOON, our goal is to be certain that we’re investing in AI technology that supports creators, while keeping the creative process firmly of their hands.
With tools like Shaper and Constella reducing drawing time, how does WEBTOON maintain a balance between improving efficiency for artists and preserving the individuality of their work?
That is a very important issue for us and for all Creative Industries. A comic book is an unlimited amount of labor, and it’s hard to actually understand what goes right into a page. A reader sees just a few panels, some dialogue, and exquisite images. But all of that takes loads of effort and time! Coloring is a task unto itself in making comics. That lovely page exploding with color doesn’t just occur. It’s a protracted, precise, and deliberate process. If we may help make that process easier for a Creator and reduce time spent, that’s a win.
That is the type of mindset we bring to all of our innovations. In actual fact, we’re currently experimenting with an AI Painter Tool, that’s geared toward reducing coloring time. All of our innovations are about providing tools that could make a creator’s life easier, so it may possibly be easier for artists to make art and tell stories. Shaper and Constella support in similar ways, making creators’ processes easier and reducing how much time they spend on different parts of their storytelling.
In what ways do you suspect AI may help artists push the boundaries of their creativity? Are you able to share examples where AI has already led to unexpected artistic innovations?
That’s really not how we take into consideration AI. Artists already make universes with their work. We host hundreds of thousands of comics on our platform and the creativity I’ve seen is boundless. Creativity doesn’t need AI to assist it push boundaries, and we leave art to artists.
But AI and technology can support an artist’s process, and that’s where we may be helpful. If we may help an artist reduce the period of time they should spend on an element of their work that appears like work, that’s an amazing consequence and use case for AI and the approach we’re taking at WEBTOON.
Beyond Shaper and Constella, how do you see AI shaping the longer term of WEBTOON’s platform and the broader creative industry? Are there any upcoming AI initiatives you may share?
Beyond creator productivity, we all know that AI goes to play a giant role in the longer term of content discovery. WEBTOON continues to take a position on this area and we recently launched a new edition of our AI-powered content suggestion model in Korea, which notably increased user engagement within the months following its release. Higher reader engagement helps artists thrive, receive widespread support, and make a living doing what they love. Using AI to succeed in interested fans in higher ways also helps construct fan communities and, potentially, opens doors to other adaptations on Netflix, etc.
With AI continuing to advance, many artists are concerned about being replaced or their work being stolen. How does WEBTOON plan to handle these concerns and foster a collaborative relationship between technology and creators?
Everywhere in the creative industries, artists are concerned about misuse and theft of their mental property. And like TV, film, and other creative industries, as webcomics have grown in popularity, so has piracy online. Webcomics take significant amounts of time and dedication to provide, so it’s incredibly disheartening when those materials are stolen on the artist’s expense. We now have all the time been committed to safeguarding artists’ rights, which incorporates stringent policies and technological solutions – like Toon Radar – that actively combats unauthorized use of our creators’ work.
To foster collaboration, we see AI as a tool for our artists, not a alternative. AI can tackle repetitive tasks or help streamline production processes, allowing creators to give attention to what truly matters—their unique storytelling and artistic voice. By providing AI tools that assist with tasks like scene generation, colorization, and even interactive content development, we aim to provide creators more time to innovate and push the boundaries of their craft.
Ultimately, our goal is to construct a future where technology enhances creativity, with creators firmly in command of their artistic vision, and AI as an enabler of latest possibilities reasonably than a threat.
