This power couple runs three products—GliaStar, GliaStory, and GliaStudio—while also parenting two young kids.
Founder Spotlight of Gliacloud: Agnes Peng
Agnes Peng is the co-founder and COO of GliaCloud. The company is behind GliaStudio, an award-winning AI-powered video production platform; GliaStory, an AI-transformer for mobile-friendly web stories; and GliaStar, an AI-powered solution that animates the brand mascots through text inputs.
Headline first met Agnes and David in 2017 through the Taiwan Startup Stadium. We recognized the growing demand for video content and how cost-inefficient having an in-house videography team could be for smaller companies. We believe that with GliaCloud, the world can save more time on editing and focus more on content creation, and we invested in them in 2017.
(Photo courtesy of Agnes Peng)
What is the biggest risk you took to found a company with your husband?
When I met my husband, David, I was moved by his talent and his commitment to innovation, so I decided to join his journey in leveraging AI technology to bring something useful to the world.
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However, we do have mutual consent to support each other no matter how. As such, it's more like a leap of faith that we are a team by all means.”
Founding a company with my husband was challenging. We spend 24-hours together almost every day. However, we do have mutual consent to support each other no matter how. As such, it’s more like a leap of faith that we are a team by all means.
(Photo courtesy of Agnes Peng)
Complete this sentence: “Few people know this about me, but…”
Few people know this about me, but I actually own a Commercial Real Estate Agent License in Canada. Back in the days when I worked in the finance industry, I needed to deal with investment deals that involved commercial properties. It was fun to take some courses and learn the required knowledge like calculating mortgages and house inspection laws, etc.
When did you know you had to start GliaCloud?
When I saw possibilities in the technology we have. Coming from a VC financial background, I believe our team has what it takes to build an incredible AI application. We started GliaCloud because we saw that video content would dominate the way people communicate, and we aimed to build a usable AI solution—not to take over human work, but to make video production simpler and easier.
(Photo courtesy of Agnes Peng)
What’s something you’re trying to learn?
To balance between technology and human interference. Having a hundred percent of everything be machine-generated sounds great. But is this the most effective way for our customers, especially when content production usually involves personal feelings and creativity?
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We are still learning to stand in users' shoes more and keep in mind that users come first and technology after.”
Originally GliaCloud only provided an API to customers without room for modification. Then we learned that it is important to keep the “human touch,” so we started to provide a range of video editing user interfaces where our customers can embrace AI with their own creativity. We are still learning to stand in users’ shoes more and keep in mind that users come first and technology after.
What’s something you were wrong about when you started GliaCloud?
When we first started, we aimed to generate videos for the media and advertising industry. Our AI videos helped to generate millions of traffic in a foreign market.
It was a good start, but we later realized that many video editing teams see us as rivals, even though our intention was never to replace, but to empower them. In the creative industry, variety is deeply valued, so we give users more flexibility in editing and adjusting styles according to cultural and platform preferences.
What product are you most obsessed with?
GliaStar. Our text-to-animation tool can generate character animation according to the inputted text’s meaning. This technology sheds light on regular AI-generated videos, as it makes videos more engaging! As a mother of two young kids, I am excited to see how this can be used for creating more educational content.
GliaStar generates character animation according to the inputted text’s meaning
The one business question you hate getting?
“Can your AI help me do____?”
Of course, we always try to fulfill our customers’ needs, but not necessarily using AI. Video aesthetics are the objective and people have endless imaginations of what AI can do. In the midst of this, we try to find common needs and only develop relevant technologies.
What’s next?
Bridging. Expanding from our core technology, we are building platforms to make our products available to a more diverse set of users. We begin with providing services and collecting first-hand feedback.
We realize many people had problems writing “text” for our text-to-video and text-to-animation tools, so we are looking to innovate by implementing script-generation and writing-support technologies, which will make the creation process even smoother and easier. We will stand by our users and continue to investigate how AI can really help.
Follow GliaCoud on Facebook to see their latest progress in AI content creation.
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