[Summary] KT Koo Hyun-mo Declares "AI for Everyone's Daily Life"... AICC Sales Target 500 Billion Won

[Asia Economy Reporter Joesulgina] "We will create a daily life where artificial intelligence (AI) responds 24 hours a day, 365 days a year."

KT under the leadership of Koo Hyun-mo has declared ‘AI for everyone’s daily life’ by advancing AI technology that converses like a human. By fully launching AI-based businesses such as AI customer centers and AI call assistants, the strategy aims to accelerate an era where AI serves customers and handles tasks not only in public institutions and large corporations but also in neighborhood beauty salons.

On the morning of the 25th, KT held an online press briefing under the theme ‘AI for everyone’s daily life’ to unveil this AI strategy. KT CEO Koo Hyun-mo stated, "We have secured ‘AI active complex conversation’ technology that understands and interprets the Korean language best," adding, "AI contact center (AICC) services such as AI customer centers and AI call assistants introduced based on this technology will be a turning point that changes the paradigm of the AI industry."

◇"Conversing like a human" Full-scale AI business launch

KT’s AI active complex conversation technology, optimized by deploying over 200 developers, features ‘dynamic modeling’ that recognizes the flow of conversation, analyzes customer intent, and remembers the context of the dialogue. CEO Koo emphasized, "We will expand KT AI active complex conversation technology to customer centers of corporate clients and public institutions to create a daily life where AI responds 24/7," and added, "We will also enable small and medium-sized enterprises and small business owners who find it difficult to establish separate customer centers to communicate with customers 24 hours a day."

The AI call assistant launched on this day is a micro customer center service available not only to companies but also to 7 million self-employed individuals. When a customer calls the store’s landline number, the call is connected to a pre-designated smartphone, and AI responds to customers 24/7 on behalf of busy owners. It can handle complex inquiries as well as reservations and orders. The monthly fee is 22,000 KRW (including VAT).

KT is also expanding AICC application to over 50 institutions in finance, dining, distribution, government, and local governments based on the technology and know-how of introducing AI to its own customer center. Currently, KT is partnering with financial institutions such as Shinhan Life, Woori Bank, and NH Investment & Securities to introduce AI to customer centers. Franchise-type AICC products recently commercialized by KT, such as Mad for Garlic, are also receiving positive responses. In the future, AICC utilization is expected to increase in public sectors such as disaster safety and administrative guidance. Having obtained the Cloud Security Assurance Program (CSAP) certification, KT is the only provider that can offer cloud-based AI voicebot or chatbot services to governments, local governments, and public institutions.

◇AICC Targeted... Commercialization of ‘Hyper-scale AI’

KT views the AICC business as a ‘catalyst’ that will innovate both daily life and industry with AI. Accordingly, KT plans to target the AICC business as a representative future business for its transformation into a digital platform company (Digico), aiming to preoccupy the market and increase corporate value. The goal is to achieve sales of 500 billion KRW by 2025.

Choi Joon-ki, head of the AI Big Data Business Division, explained at the briefing, "AICC consists of three main businesses: AI customer centers providing 24/7 customer response, the AI call assistant for small business owners announced today, and franchise-type services," adding, "We estimate that sales could reach about 500 billion KRW by 2025 and are building capabilities accordingly." The domestic contact center market currently is estimated at 10 to 11 trillion KRW annually, with AICC accounting for about 3 trillion KRW.

In particular, KT plans to further advance AI active complex conversation technology to ultimately realize ‘human-like AI.’ In the first half of next year, KT will commercialize a ‘hyper-scale AI model’ developed jointly with KAIST, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), and Hanyang University. Known as the ‘dream AI,’ hyper-scale AI refers to AI designed to think autonomously like a human by learning large-scale data based on infrastructure capable of massive computation. It is expected to be applied to AICC and Giga Genie, among others. Division head Song Jae-ho explained, "When the hyper-scale AI language model is applied in the first half of next year, KT plans to create products by linking AI-based language services with B2C and B2B companies."

CEO Koo said, "We will upgrade AI technologies and services, including Korean-style hyper-scale AI modeling, to lead changes in customers’ lives and innovation in industries."

Meanwhile, immediately after the briefing ended at 11:20 a.m., KT’s wired and wireless internet services experienced an outage lasting about 40 minutes, causing numerous cases of disruption nationwide. Services including internet search, securities trading systems, store payment systems, delivery order systems, QR code authentication, and corporate work systems were all interrupted, and in some areas, telephone calls were also unavailable, spreading the outage further.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.