9 out of 10 Small and Medium Enterprises Do Not Use AI

Korea Federation of SMEs to Announce Survey Results on the 4th
"Need to Inform Utilization Methods Within Industries"

Nine out of ten small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were found not to utilize artificial intelligence (AI).

Photo by Korea Federation of SMEs

The Korea Federation of SMEs announced on the 4th the results of the "Survey on the Intention to Utilize AI in SMEs," conducted from September 25 to last month 23, targeting 300 SMEs. This survey was conducted to explore ways to expand AI utilization as a solution to "productivity decline and labor shortage issues in SMEs."

Only 5.3% of SMEs applied AI. Those not applying AI accounted for 94.7%. The percentage of companies hoping to adopt AI in the future was confirmed to be 16.3% of the total.

The main reasons SMEs did not apply AI were low necessity and lack of awareness about how to utilize it. 80.7% responded that "AI is not necessary for our business," 14.9% said "We do not know well how it helps company management," and 4.4% answered "The cost of AI introduction and maintenance is burdensome."

Regarding the fields planned for AI technology application (1st + 2nd + 3rd priority), "defect detection and defect rate factor analysis using vision systems" (44.7%) was chosen most frequently. This was followed by "new market and customer development, marketing, and advertising" (37.7%), and "analysis of past sales data and future sales forecasting" (31.3%).

As the main support items for AI utilization (1st + 2nd priority), "financial and tax benefits upon introduction" (84.0%) and "promotion of success cases and achievements tailored to industry and company size" (66.3%) were surveyed. For questions about necessary information and infrastructure support (1st + 2nd priority), responses were "computing infrastructure such as sensors and computing equipment" (68.7%) and "establishment of inter-company collaboration networks" (48.0%). As obstacles (1st + 2nd priority), "lack of customized application services needed by companies" (64.0%) was cited most frequently, followed by "lack of investable funds" (54.0%) and "limitations of available data and foundational information" (43.0%).

When asked about the application stages planned within the next three years, 79% responded "education and consulting," 9.7% "preparation of data collection and preprocessing plans," 7.3% "modeling and equipment/system construction," and 4.0% "model training and field application." Regarding the budget expected to reach the targeted AI technology application stage, 66% of companies anticipated "less than 10 million KRW." Most responses indicated a self-funded ratio of "20% or less."

Yang Chan-hoe, Head of the Innovation Growth Division at the Korea Federation of SMEs, said, "Even AI technology, an important agenda of the era, is experiencing polarization between SMEs and large corporations," adding, "It is necessary to support SMEs to experience operational efficiency by introducing AI starting from management support tasks (CS, budgeting, marketing, etc.) and to provide excellent cases and utilization methods within industries."

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