SKT Invests in 'PersonaAI', a Leading AI-Based Customer Center Company

Strategic Investment in Leading AICC Company... 3rd Largest Shareholder
Collaboration on AICC Product Development and Joint Business Promotion
AICC Selected as Core Business in Enterprise AI Sector

SK Telecom announced on the 21st that it has become the third largest shareholder by participating as a major strategic investor (SI) in Persona AI. Persona AI is a company with technological capabilities and product competitiveness, having independently developed a Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine and introduced the subscription-based AICC service for the first time in Korea. AICC is an AI-based customer center that applies various AI technologies such as voice engines, speech recognition, and sentence analysis, enabling 24-hour consultation through AI chatbots and callbots without waiting time to connect to a human agent.

Collaboration between Persona AI and AICC, Speech Recognition Robots, Joining K-AI Alliance

This collaboration between SKT and Persona AI was made to secure AI leadership in customer service amid widespread innovation across all industries in the generative AI era. The two companies plan to jointly develop callbot/chatbot products and AICC business by combining SKT’s excellent speech-to-text (STT) and text-to-speech (TTS) technologies, known as NUGU, with Persona AI’s natural language processing and generation technologies.

In particular, Persona AI, which launched Korea’s first subscription-based (SaaS) AICC service, plans to release a CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) that integrates SKT’s consultation history system and agent call distribution system, allowing immediate use of AI customer center functions. This will enable small and medium-sized enterprises, which previously faced high costs, to easily adopt subscription-based AICC services.

Through this collaboration, SKT plans to strengthen its comprehensive AICC (AICC E2E, End-to-End) business by providing the entire process from consulting, infrastructure construction, maintenance services, to outsourcing (BPO), beyond just selling AICC solutions. Persona AI also joined the ‘K-AI Alliance,’ launched to cooperate on AI business and jointly pursue global expansion, which was initiated by SKT at MWC23 held in Barcelona, Spain, last February. The ‘K-AI Alliance’ includes 11 leading domestic AI companies such as Moloco, Konan Technology, Sapion, Cimes, Machinarax, and Scatter Lab.

AICC Shows the Fastest Growth in the Enterprise AI Market... Annual Growth Rate of 23.7%

AICC is currently showing the fastest growth among enterprise AI markets due to the advancement of AI technology and rising labor costs. AICC products are divided into on-premise and subscription types. On-premise products, which require initial investment, mainly serve financial and insurance companies with sufficient funds and high customer consultation demand. Subscription products are increasingly in demand among small and medium-sized B2C companies. Telecom companies, equipped with wired and wireless communication technologies necessary for stable service provision and possessing large amounts of training data, have quickly entered and led the domestic AICC market from its early stages.

Market research firm Allied Market Research forecasted that the domestic AICC market will grow at an annual rate of 23.7%, reaching approximately KRW 454.6 billion by 2030. Another market research firm, Research and Markets, predicted that the global AICC market will grow by 25% annually, reaching USD 36.1 billion (about KRW 46.8794 trillion) by 2025. Lee Gyusik, SKT’s AI Contact Business Manager, said, “As the AICC market is rapidly growing, we have gained a great opportunity to work with excellent partners like Persona AI. Going forward, we plan to lead the AICC market through joint product launches and proactive technology development with Persona AI, and expand the ecosystem to utilize voice AI not only in contact centers but also across various industrial sectors.”

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