[CES 2024] Kim Yong-hoon, SKT Vice President, "Android Interpretation Call Launching in Q1"

Kim Yong-hoon, Head of AI Service Division (CASO·Vice President) at SKT, is explaining SKT's AI strategy at the 'CES 2024' event held in Las Vegas, USA, on the 10th (local time). Photo by SKT

"We hope to become the super app in the communication domain. Although the A. (A-dot) Interpretation Call Android version is somewhat delayed, our goal is to launch it within the first quarter."

On the 10th (local time), Kim Yong-hoon, Vice President and Head of SKT AI Service Division (CASO), spoke to the press at the SK ICT Demo Room set up at CES 2024. Vice President Kim shared the future direction and key strategies for the AI assistant service 'A-dot.' A-dot is SKT's Korean language-based AI assistant service launched in 2021. In its beta version, SKT added various features to A-dot, including ▲TV ▲Game ▲Photo ▲Routine. Additionally, in June last year, SKT collaborated with Scatter Lab, the developer of the conversational chatbot service 'Iruda,' to create the 'Friends' feature, which enables emotional conversations.

Vice President Kim revealed that the real-time interpretation feature of A-dot, called 'Interpretation Call,' currently implemented on Apple iPhones, is being developed to be available on Android within the first quarter of this year. He said, "The release schedule may be adjusted considering completeness and other factors," adding, "Although the Android version is somewhat delayed, we have significantly advanced the original plan to showcase a more complete product to the market faster."

Regarding the Interpretation Call service, he stated, "We are improving various technologies to enhance the service, and these improvements are fundamentally aligned with the technologies required for A-dot to become a PAA (Personal AI Assistant). There are several technologies that need continuous advancement by category."

On A-dot's growth after its official launch, Vice President Kim said, "I may not be able to share specific figures, but internally, the results are encouraging. Since the official service transition and the introduction of AI conversion features like iPhone call recording, the internal metrics have shown a significant upward trend."

On the same day, he disclosed that they are considering integrating a large language model (LLM) into the A-dot application.

At CES 2024, the world's largest consumer electronics and IT exhibition held in Las Vegas, USA, on the 10th (local time), Vice President Kim told domestic reporters, "While the capacity needs to be sufficiently small to maintain performance, I believe that LLMs with fewer parameters could be embedded within the app."

This suggests that SKT, which does not manufacture hardware directly, may apply on-device AI?running AI locally on the device without internet connection?to A-dot through software methods in the future.

Previously, Samsung Electronics also announced plans to include real-time interpretation call features that do not require separate app installation, starting with Galaxy smartphones equipped with on-device AI.

Vice President Kim explained that, so far, there have been no cases of embedding LLMs directly into apps. He said, "On-device LLM will certainly become a key technological trend. Previously, embedding LLMs into hardware was a challenging task, but now chips have greatly improved, and LLMs have been significantly lightweighted."

He continued, "Like edge computing (processing some data on distributed small servers), when specific device LLMs are embedded, faster speeds and cost reductions may be possible. However, the actual performance needs to be continuously tested." He added, "As the size decreases, the performance achievable solely by LLMs running on the device itself may be limited. In the long term, tasks that can be done on-device will be handled locally, and performance enhancements requiring advanced capabilities will be improved through a hybrid method linked with the cloud."

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