AWS Celebrates 20th Anniversary, Ushering in the Era of Agentic and Physical AI

AWS Summit Seoul 2026 Kicks Off

"Korea Poised to Lead the AI Era with World-Class Network Infrastructure and Industrial Ecosystems"

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest cloud service provider, unveiled its roadmap for agentic artificial intelligence (AI) and physical AI in celebration of its 20th anniversary. The event brought together a range of AI agent services and physical AI solutions powered by AWS.

Him Kiho, CEO of AWS Korea, delivered the keynote speech at ‘AWS Summit Seoul 2026’ held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on the morning of the 19th. He stated, “Just four to five years ago, generative AI was introduced, and it has now evolved into agentic AI that can make independent decisions, AI-driven development (AI DLC) that transforms development methodologies, and physical AI.”

Ham Kiho, CEO of AWS Korea, is delivering the keynote speech at 'AWS Summit Seoul 2026' held at COEX, Gangnam-gu, Seoul on the morning of the 19th. Photo by Lee Myunghwan

During his keynote, Him introduced examples of how AWS supports customers in the era of agentic AI. He emphasized, “AI is moving beyond coding tools; through a new methodology known as AI DLC, in which humans and AI collaboratively design, develop, and validate software, it is now possible to achieve both development and final decision-making. This will become a new standard for organizations to redesign how they work alongside AI.”

One example of agentic AI powered by AWS services is Samsung Electronics. He explained that Samsung has implemented an autonomous cloud operation agent based on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore for its Samsung Account, used by more than 2.1 billion people worldwide. This has reduced recovery time from failures by more than 90%, with the goal of detecting failures within 10 minutes.

Him also announced AWS’s new support program for physical AI called ‘Physical AI Frontier.’ He stressed, “From data collection and model training to simulation and inference, AWS’s dedicated teams will provide technical support, connect companies, and serve as a bridge for global expansion.”

The AWS Summit Seoul held on this day is recognized as the largest AI and cloud conference in Korea. Now in its 12th year, this summit is expected to attract more than 25,000 participants. Notably, this year marks both the 20th anniversary of AWS’s official launch of cloud services and the 10th anniversary of its entry into the Korean market. In 2006, AWS released its first storage service, Amazon S3, and in 2016, it opened the Seoul Region, marking its full-scale entry into Korea.

Following Him’s presentation, AWS Chief Financial Officer John Felton remarked, “Korea is one of our most strategically important markets, equipped with world-class network infrastructure and industrial ecosystems in semiconductors and manufacturing. Korea is ready to lead the era of agentic AI.”

Jason Bennett, Vice President of AWS Global Startups, unveiled new features of the AI-based development tool ‘Kiro’ and introduced ‘Amazon Transform Custom,’ an AI agent that converts legacy code written in older programming languages into modern code. Sung Hoon Kim, CEO of Upstage, and Hwan Kim, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CJ Olive Young, also shared service cases built on AWS.

This year's summit focuses on two main pillars: agentic AI and physical AI. In addition to the keynote speeches, more than 120 sessions and exhibitions will provide participants with insights into AI agent technologies.

AI Diagnoses Skin Tone for Personal Color Analysis... Autonomous Delivery Robots On Display

AmorePacific's booth at 'AWS Summit Seoul 2026.' Photo by AWS

In the expo area of the event, visitors could experience services from AWS customers utilizing AWS AI technologies.

Amorepacific set up an experiential booth that offered personal color diagnosis. When visitors positioned their faces in front of a tablet PC, AI analyzed their skin tone and recommended suitable cosmetics and skincare methods. This service merges Amorepacific’s dermatological data with AWS’s AI models.

NC AI exhibited an AI commerce demo that generates detailed product pages for fashion items using just photos and voice interactions. Visitors could photograph their outfits and describe the brand concept, and the AI agent would automatically generate model cut images, product photos, and runway videos to create a draft of the product detail page.

Physical AI Zone set up at 'AWS Summit Seoul 2026'. AWS

The Physical AI Zone featured robotic arms and unmanned delivery robots. Physical AI startup Config demonstrated two collaborative robotic arms that sorted recyclable waste—glass bottles, plastics, and aluminum cans—by material. ROAI showcased an autonomous production demo in which visitors could draw a path, and the robot would follow the route accordingly.

At the Newbility booth, the autonomous delivery robot ‘Newbie Flow’ roamed the venue, delivering goods as part of a live demonstration. During the demonstration, real-time footage from the robot’s camera was broadcast, and the integrated control system displayed the robot’s location and driving status on a monitor.

A special booth commemorating AWS’s 20th anniversary was also set up. Here, AI-centric solutions such as ‘AWS for Industry’ and the Physical AI Lounge were on display, showcasing industrial AI applications. In the Kiro Zone, a developer experience area, visitors could try programming a character to move using only voice commands.

On the morning of the 19th, an installation commemorating AWS's 20th anniversary was exhibited at the COEX event hall in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, where the 'AWS Summit Seoul 2026' is being held. Photo by Lee Myunghwan

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