Journalist
Joonha Yoo유준하
joonhayoo94@ajupress.com
ReporterCOEX Sejong Center for the Performing Arts & Music, Culture, Entertainment, Automotive
Joonha Yoo is a bilingual journalist at AJU Press (AJP), covering music, culture, entertainment and Korea’s automotive industry.
Raised in Fort Collins, Colorado, he often writes from the scene, bringing firsthand detail to stories ranging
from BTS comeback concerts to unique cultural events that catch the world's eye. "I write from the scene, not from the sidelines."
Raised in Fort Collins, Colorado, he often writes from the scene, bringing firsthand detail to stories ranging
from BTS comeback concerts to unique cultural events that catch the world's eye. "I write from the scene, not from the sidelines."
Latest by Joonha Yoo
-
When ads stop looking like ads SEOUL, September 29 (AJP) - The digital wave has torn down the fence between advertising and entertainment in South Korea. Banks produce web dramas and variety shows. Retailers try short-form comedy. Brands commission songs and music videos, and even create their own idols. Construction companies are joining in, seeking an audience that can swipe past a conventional ad in seconds. As viewing shifts toward streaming services and algorithm-driven feeds, brands are no longer simply buying space around something people want to watch. They are trying to become something people want to watch. One of the latest examples features a tunnel engineer with a microphone. “Break Through,” a hip-hop music video released Sept. 15 by the Korea Construction Engineers Association and Samho Development, was filmed at an actual construction site and features a real engineer rapping about his work. It had topped 200,000 views as of Tuesday. Lee Ji-young, a 34-year-old office worker from Anyang, initially mistook it for a low-budget music video by an independent rapper. “I didn’t think it was an advertisement,” Lee said. “The song was surprisingly good. The beat didn’t feel completely professional, but it was strangely addictive.” Discovering who was behind it made her consider whether she would have watched it at all. “If someone told me from the beginning that it was an advertisement, I probably wouldn’t have gone looking for it,” she said. “But if I came across it without knowing that, I think I would watch it until the end.” Korea’s advertising money is following its viewers. Online advertising reached 10.1 trillion won ($7.1 billion) in 2024, up 7.9 percent from a year earlier, while broadcast advertising fell 5 percent to 3.22 trillion won, according to the Korea Broadcasting Advertising Corporation. Online spending is projected to approach 11.5 trillion won in 2026, against about 2.56 trillion won for broadcasting. More than three-quarters of online ad spending already goes to mobile. A 2025 survey by the Korea Creative Content Agency found that 89.1 percent of respondents used online video services, with YouTube reaching 85.4 percent. Among online video users, 91.7 percent watched on smartphones. Nearly six in 10 respondents watched short-form content. Of those, 76 percent cited its brevity and ease of consumption as a reason. Entertainment and variety clips were the most popular category. On those screens, a brand competes with whatever comes next: an idol performance, a restaurant review, a comedy clip or a friend’s holiday video. “In the past, brands placed advertisements around good content,” said Kim Ye-won, a brand marketer at an Incheon-based marketing firm. “Now brands themselves have to make content that consumers would choose to watch.” Banks have been among the most active. KB Kookmin Bank’s fantasy web drama “Walking Through Kwangya” accumulated more than 30 million views, according to the bank. It later worked with SM Entertainment on aespa’s “Live My Life,” which appeared on the group’s first full-length album and recorded more than 17.8 million streams across major Korean music platforms by early 2025, the bank said. Woori Bank’s 10-part financial education web variety show “Teen Receiving Friends” drew more than 2.6 million YouTube views by April 2025. An accompanying campaign generated more than 20,000 comments. Convenience store chain CU got an earlier start. Its short-form drama “Convenience Store Veteran” passed 100 million cumulative views in 2022. By 2023, it and a companion series had together exceeded 300 million views. Branded entertainment is hardly new. What is changing is its reach into banks, industry groups and organizations whose publicity once had little reason to entertain anyone. A single production can also travel further. A web variety show can supply a full YouTube episode, several Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok clips. Individual scenes can then be reused as paid ads. But getting people to watch is only part of the job. They may remember the joke, song or character and forget who paid for it. Jung Sung-il, a 25-year-old civil service exam student, had already encountered “Break Through.” “I liked it, so I pressed the like button,” Jung said. “I like that kind of B-grade feeling.” A more polished production might have put him off. “If there were drones flying around and everything looked flashy, I probably wouldn’t have watched it,” he said. Yet his viewing habits also reveal the weakness of advertising that blends into entertainment. “Sometimes a video is really funny and I can watch it several times, but when I try to find it again, I can’t remember the name,” he said. For marketers, that gap separates a popular video from an effective advertisement. “Views show whether the content worked. They don’t necessarily show whether the advertising worked,” Kim said. Marketers therefore examine watch time, completion rates, comments and shares, she said, then look for evidence that attention carries over into brand recall, searches, website visits and purchases. Some company figures suggest that it can. Fashion group Handsome said the sales growth rate at its premium online mall more than doubled in the days after its web drama aired in October 2021. Monthly views of its brand among younger consumers rose from about 300,000 to more than 3.7 million. CU said average monthly views on its YouTube channel jumped 391 percent after “Convenience Store Veteran” launched in 2022, with the channel adding more than 20,000 subscribers in a short period. An Incross report found that short-form video ads had the highest brand recognition rate among digital formats at 67.7 percent. Social media feed ads recorded the highest post-click purchase conversion rate at 60.3 percent. An academic survey of 222 YouTube web-drama viewers also found that immersion improved brand image and attitude. Those findings offer only a partial measure of effectiveness. The campaign figures are largely company-reported and several years old. The Incross report covers digital advertising more broadly, while the academic study measured attitudes rather than purchases. None establishes that entertainment alone drove sales. For banks and industry groups, whose offerings are rarely impulse purchases, the connection can be harder to trace. Advertisers must also judge how prominently to feature themselves. Push the brand too aggressively and viewers may swipe away. Hide it too well and they may remember everything except the advertiser. A related shift is drawing billions of dollars into creator advertising in the United States. U.S. spending in that category more than doubled from $13.9 billion in 2021 to $29.5 billion in 2024, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. It was projected to reach $37.1 billion in 2025 and roughly $44 billion in 2026. Nearly half of U.S. ad buyers surveyed by IAB called creator advertising a “must buy.” Korea’s figures measure a different market. Its broader digital creator media industry, which includes production and platform businesses, generated 5.55 trillion won in sales in 2024, with advertising accounting for 53.7 percent. Kim also sees a difference in how brands participate. In the United States, creator advertising often involves paying individual creators for access to their audiences. Korean brands, she said, are increasingly becoming producers themselves, commissioning dramas and variety shows, releasing music and developing recurring characters for their own channels. Lee still remembers older campaigns that made the brand inseparable from the entertainment. She cited Gatsby hair wax and Old Spice, recalling how her younger brother once showed friends his Old Spice deodorant largely because he wanted to talk about the commercials. Jung’s relationship with newer branded content is more detached. He watches, likes and sometimes sends it to friends. But asked whether a video had ever persuaded him to buy the product behind it, he could not recall an example. “I don’t think I’ve bought anything because of them,” Jung said. “I just consume them as funny videos and pass them around.” AJP Takeaways - Korean brands are increasingly producing dramas, variety shows, music videos and short-form content as advertising shifts toward streaming and mobile platforms. - Online ad spending reached 10.1 trillion won in 2024, while broadcast advertising fell to 3.22 trillion won. - The challenge is not just attracting views but converting attention into brand recall, searches, visits and purchases. 2026-09-29 17:54:45 -
Mexican TV specials trace Korea's cultural rise SEOUL, September 29 (AJP) - Two major Mexican broadcasters aired three documentaries examining South Korea's cultural rise and use of artificial intelligence during President Lee Jae Myung's state visit, the Culture Ministry said Tuesday. TV Azteca and Imagen Television broadcast the programs from Sept. 24 to 26 across terrestrial television, pay TV services and digital platforms. One TV Azteca documentary traced the global spread of Korean culture to decades of investment in education and culture, using independence activist Kim Koo's writings on the "power of culture" as a starting point. It also revisited the migration of 1,033 Koreans to Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula in 1905 and their later support for Korea's independence movement. Imagen Television separately examined how Korean traditions such as fermented sauces and hanbok have been adapted across fashion, urban culture and beauty. A third program focused on AI, featuring workplace robots at Hyundai Motor, AI-assisted medical systems, disaster prediction research and autonomous firefighting equipment as examples of technology being deployed alongside human workers. The AI documentary aired on Sept. 24, the day Lee and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum adopted a bilateral AI cooperation declaration and a 2026 to 2030 joint action plan covering areas including digital technology, trade and aerospace. The Culture Ministry said the documentaries will also be aired later this year through Arirang TV and MBC Plus. AJP Takeaways - TV Azteca and Imagen Televisión aired three Korea-focused documentaries from Sept. 24 to 26. - The programs connected Korea's cultural expansion with long term investment in education and culture. - One documentary highlighted Korea's use of AI in workplaces, medicine and disaster response. 2026-09-29 15:25:33 -
NMIXX sets October comeback ahead of world tour finale SEOUL, September 29 (AJP) -K-pop girl group NMIXX will release its sixth EP "Strange Muse" before wrapping up its first world tour with three encore shows planned in Incheon, JYP Entertainment said Tuesday. Upcoming album will be led by the title track "Birthday Wish," marking the group's first release since "Heavy Serenade" in May. It will also include "Kerosene" and "RudE TaLK," along with three unit tracks. Lily and Haewon teamed up for "Sing to the Moon," Sullyoon and Bae for "Hot 'n Unbothered" and Jiwoo and Kyujin for "WHIP." NMIXX began releasing trailers and concept photos for the album this week ahead of its Oct. 19 release at 6 p.m. The group will hold encore concerts for its first world tour, "EPISODE 1: ZERO FRONTIER," at Inspire Arena in Incheon from Nov. 27 to 29. The three shows will close the tour. AJP Takeaways - NMIXX will release its sixth EP "Strange Muse" on Oct. 19. - The album contains six tracks led by "Birthday Wish." - Members contributed to three unit songs. 2026-09-29 12:57:55 -
2PM's Wooyoung sets seven solo shows across four Asian cities SEOUL, September 29 (AJP) - K-pop boy group 2PM member Jang Wooyoung will stage seven solo concerts across four Asian cities from November through March, JYP Entertainment said Tuesday. The world tour will kick off with two shows in Seoul on Nov. 14 and 15, followed by concerts in Hyogo, Japan, on Dec. 25 and 26. Wooyoung will then perform in Tokyo on Jan. 9 and 10 before wrapping up the schedule in Taipei on March 20. The singer addressed that he plans to incorporate jazz hip-hop and piano into the concerts and debut a new song during the run. Further ticketing and venue details will be announced through his official channels. AJP Takeaways - Wooyoung will hold seven solo concerts across four cities. - The run begins in Seoul in November and ends in Taipei in March. - Japan stops include Hyogo and Tokyo. 2026-09-29 12:57:39 -
NCT exhibition draws 4.55 million visitors SEOUL, September 29 (AJP) - A 10th-anniversary art balloon exhibition for K-pop group NCT drew more than 4.5 million visitors to Seoul's Seokchon Lake over 25 days, SM Entertainment said Tuesday. The exhibition attracted about 4.547 million visitors from Sept. 3 through 27, according to data compiled by the Lotte Future Strategy Institute. NCT worked with Lotte and Seoul's Songpa District on the installation, which featured large-scale art balloons around the lake as part of events marking the group's 10th anniversary. Night lighting using NCT's signature color was also installed around the eastern section of the lake from Sept. 7 to 25. A separate anniversary exhibition, "EXHIBITION : NEO DIMENSION," is running at Lotte World Adventure in Jamsil through Oct. 18. AJP Takeaways - NCT's Seokchon Lake exhibition drew about 4.547 million visitors. - The outdoor installation ran for 25 days from Sept. 3 to 27. - A separate NCT anniversary exhibition continues through Oct. 18. 2026-09-29 12:57:27 -
Foreign selling keeps KOSPI lower despite chip rebound SEOUL, September 29 (AJP) - South Korea's benchmark index remained below 6,900 Tuesday morning as foreign investors sold more than 1 trillion won ($762 million) of shares, offsetting gains in Samsung Electronics and other chip stocks. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) stood at 6,859.59 as of 11:15 a.m., down 30.15 points, or 0.44 percent, from Monday's close. The index moved between 6,822.36 and 6,898.36 during the morning session. The KOSPI had fallen 2.7 percent Monday to 6,889.74 as trading resumed after the Chuseok holiday, with foreign and institutional investors selling heavily. The selling continued Tuesday. Foreign investors sold a net 1.03 trillion won of KOSPI shares by 11:15 a.m., while individual investors bought 499.6 billion won. Semiconductors moved against the broader market. The semiconductor and semiconductor-equipment sector rose 1.0 percent. Samsung Electronics gained 1.7 percent to 274,500 won, while SK hynix edged up 0.3 percent to 1,774,000 won. SK Square, the holding company that owns a major stake in SK hynix, rose 1.2 percent to 1,113,000 won. Hanmi Semiconductor climbed 5.8 percent to 248,000 won. The gains amounted to a partial rebound from Monday, when Samsung Electronics fell 5.4 percent and SK hynix lost 5.1 percent. The resilience also contrasted with an overnight retreat in U.S. equities. The S&P 500 fell 0.8 percent Monday, the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.9 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.7 percent as higher oil prices and Treasury yields weighed on risk assets. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 1.6 percent, while Micron Technology dropped 2.6 percent. The benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose to about 5.25 percent, extending pressure on growth and technology shares. Outside chips, several major Korean stocks remained under pressure. Doosan Enerbility fell 3.3 percent to 79,300 won, while Hyundai Motor lost 2.0 percent to 347,500 won. Electronics components also edged higher. Samsung Electro-Mechanics rose 0.3 percent to 1,504,000 won, Daeduck Electronics gained 3.2 percent to 127,300 won and LG Innotek added 0.5 percent to 581,000 won. The junior KOSDAQ fell 0.8 percent to 839.72 after trading between 833.62 and 844.33. Individual investors bought a net 268.9 billion won of KOSDAQ shares, while foreign investors sold 131.8 billion won and institutions sold 114.6 billion won. Semiconductor-related names were among the most actively traded stocks on the secondary market. HPSP rose 7.9 percent to 60,400 won, Philoptics gained 9.2 percent to 37,450 won and Jusung Engineering climbed 2.4 percent to 214,000 won. Hanbit Laser surged 21.5 percent to 6,550 won. Some of the day's strongest theme readings were amplified by newly listed stocks. Physical AI stocks rose 3.5 percent, with Bigwave Robotics surging 183.3 percent to 51,000 won on its first day of trading. The company had priced its initial public offering at 18,000 won. System semiconductor stocks gained 2.6 percent. Global Technology, also making its KOSDAQ debut Tuesday, jumped 156.5 percent to 25,650 won after pricing its IPO at 10,000 won. Elsewhere in Northeast Asia, equities were also lower. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.9 percent to 65,307.00. China's Shanghai Composite slipped 0.1 percent to 3,818.95, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index declined 0.6 percent to 24,492.97. The broadly weaker regional session suggested Seoul's decline was part of a wider risk-off move, although Korean semiconductor stocks continued to outperform the domestic benchmark. The won strengthened 1.8 won against the dollar to 1,358.2. Oil prices remained an external pressure point. Brent crude traded above 106 dollars a barrel in Asian trading Tuesday, while West Texas Intermediate crude was above 93 dollars. Brent had settled Monday at 105.28 dollars and WTI at 92.60 dollars as markets weighed uncertainty over U.S.-Iran negotiations and the outlook for oil flows through the Middle East. AJP Takeaways - Foreign investors sold more than 1 trillion won of KOSPI shares by 11:15 a.m., keeping the index lower despite gains in Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. - Korean chip stocks outperformed both the domestic market and an overnight decline in U.S. semiconductor shares. - The Nikkei 225, Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng Index were all lower, pointing to broader weakness across Northeast Asian equities. 2026-09-29 12:50:23 -
When history becomes a movie, what do viewers believe? SEOUL, September 28 (AJP) - A South Korean title has returned to the top of the box-office rankings after a lengthy run by “Odyssey” and could become a social hot potato. “The Assassin(s),” directed by Hur Jin-ho, drew about 1.41 million moviegoers during the four-day holiday from Sept. 24 to 27. Its cumulative audience reached 1.57 million by Sunday. The reviews told a more complicated story. Early Monday, the film held a 92 percent CGV Egg Index and an 8.6-out-of-10 rating among verified Naver moviegoers. Its separate Naver netizen score, which does not require ticket verification, stood at just 2.4. On Megabox, four consecutive one-star audience reviews viewed by AJP focused largely on the film’s politics and treatment of history. One called it a “left-wing political propaganda film.” Another said Korean cinema would be better off collapsing than screening “fiction like this.” Each had received more than 200 likes. By Monday, the argument had reached politicians. “The Assassin(s)” follows police officers and journalists pursuing questions surrounding the Aug. 15, 1974, assassination attempt on then-President Park Chung-hee, in which first lady Yuk Young-soo was fatally shot. The official record identifies Moon Se-gwang, a Korean resident of Japan, as the gunman who attempted to assassinate Park. Park survived, while Yuk was killed in the shooting. The case also strained relations between Seoul and Tokyo after it emerged that Moon had obtained a handgun in Japan. The film does not explicitly identify Park as having orchestrated the attack. Characters, however, raise the possibility that figures around Park or the Korean Central Intelligence Agency could have been involved, a premise that has drawn accusations of historical distortion. People Power Party lawmakers were among the most vocal critics. Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk argued on Facebook that the film suggested an “absurd” possibility that Park was behind his wife’s killing and accused supporters of the film of applying freedom of expression selectively. Rep. Yoo Yeong-ha, a longtime associate of former President Park Geun-hye, called the film “political propaganda” and accused it of distorting history and damaging Park Chung-hee’s reputation. Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun took a somewhat different line, saying cinematic imagination should be protected while arguing that creative freedom should be distinguished from altering historical facts. For Ahn Hae-in, the argument arrived before the movie did. The 25-year-old job seeker had not initially planned to see “The Assassin(s).” What drew her in was the controversy surrounding it. “What made me watch the film was actually all the completely opposing reactions to it,” Ahn said. “It quickly became a political issue, and there was so much discussion about it in the news and on social media.” Before buying a ticket, she searched for the assassination attempt and read about the case. “A movie naturally involves dramatization, and I don’t think it can ever match reality 100 percent,” she said. “But if a film departs too far from what actually happened, I think that can create accusations that it is trying to manipulate people.” The controversy prompted Ahn to do her homework, but she was not sure everyone would. “If I had watched it without knowing anything beforehand, I probably would have assumed that most of what the movie showed was true.” That possibility worried Lee Min-ju, 53. “Even at my age, with little interest in or knowledge of history, what the movie presents seems very real,” Lee said. “Young people could believe it, too. It’s horrific to think we lived through such a turbulent, violent era.” Her sister, Lee Seon-ju, 49, who follows politics and history more closely, was more skeptical. “I think it is dangerous to present things that have not been fully verified,” she said. “Younger viewers may not recognize the fictional elements in a movie based on real events.” Hur has said reaching a definitive conclusion about the case was never the film’s purpose. In a pre-release interview, he said he had reviewed broadcasts, documentaries, Japanese materials, books and academic papers while developing the project, but did not believe the available material allowed him to declare a single answer. “This was not a story where I could reach a conclusion from the beginning,” Hur said. He said parts of the film were drawn from documentaries, books and research, while others involved cinematic imagination. Comparing those elements with the historical record, he said, was ultimately up to the audience. For Hur, however, the incident was also a childhood memory. He was in the fifth grade when Yuk was killed. Hur recalled his parents, and much of the country, being consumed by grief. He said the strange sadness of that period stayed with him for decades and eventually became one reason he wanted to turn the story into a film. That personal memory places the director between the generations now arguing over his movie: old enough to remember the event, but approaching it decades later through documents, research and cinema. How Koreans remember Park already differs sharply by age. A 2025 survey by the Progressive Policy Research Institute, Korea People Research Institute and Hankook Research found that 32 percent of respondents in their 20s or younger viewed Park favorably. The figure was 36 percent among those in their 30s and 35 percent among those in their 40s. It rose to 52 percent among people in their 50s, 67 percent among those in their 60s and 75 percent among respondents aged 70 or older. The May 2–4 survey measured views of Park, not reactions to the film. The viewers interviewed by AJP did not fall neatly along those age lines. Choi Jun-hwan, 34, said the words “based on a true story” carry little authority on their own — a lesson he learned from social media. “I’ve believed things I saw online before and later found out they weren’t true, which was embarrassing,” Choi said. “After going through that a few times, I started trying not to believe something unless I look it up myself and find solid evidence.” For Choi, skepticism extended beyond this particular film. Years of moving between Instagram posts, short videos and other online claims had made verification a habit. He watched “The Assassin(s)” primarily for entertainment. “If I had known nothing about the assassination of first lady Yuk Young-soo and had only seen the claim that the movie was based on real events, I probably would have believed it,” he said. “But I want to see a movie as a movie. I don’t want to approach every detail politically.” The Lee sisters’ 81-year-old mother approached the film from somewhere else entirely. She had lived through the years that younger viewers encountered through a movie, a search engine or social media. The scenes of violence and torture made her recoil. She could not understand why people would want to return to such an ugly past and relive its horrors when so much had changed. AJP TAKEAWAYS - “The Assassin(s)” drew 1.41 million moviegoers over the Chuseok holiday, returning a Korean film to the top of the box office. - Audience reaction is sharply divided, with strong verified-user ratings contrasting with much lower scores and politically charged reviews on open platforms. - The film’s suggestion that figures around Park Chung-hee or the KCIA may have been involved in the 1974 assassination attempt has triggered criticism from People Power Party lawmakers over alleged historical distortion. 2026-09-28 17:57:09 -
BTS brings K-pop second VMA 'Song of the Year' win SEOUL, September 28 (AJP) - K-pop supergroup BTS brought home the second "Song of the Year" win from the MTV Video Music Awards with group's title track "Swim," MTV said Sunday. The seven-member group also won "Best K-Pop" and "Best Group," sweeping all three categories in which it was nominated at the ceremony in Los Angeles. BTS became the second K-pop act to win Song of the Year at the VMAs, following BLACKPINK's Rosé, who won with Bruno Mars for "APT." in 2025. "Swim" is the lead single from BTS' fifth studio album "ARIRANG," released earlier this year. The track previously debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. BTS also returned to the top of the Best Group category after winning it four consecutive times from 2019 through 2022, bringing its total in the category to five. Launched in 1984, the MTV Video Music Awards are an annual U.S. awards show recognizing music videos, artists and performances across major popular music categories. K-pop picked up another major-category win through BLACKPINK's Lisa, whose "Dream," featuring Japanese actor Kentaro Sakaguchi, took Best Pop. Madonna led the night with seven trophies, while Taylor Swift won Video of the Year for "The Fate of Ophelia." AJP Takeaways - BTS became the first K-pop group to win VMA Song of the Year. - "Swim" won Song of the Year and Best K-Pop. - BTS extended its Best Group record to five wins. 2026-09-28 15:10:30 -
Shark draws 483,000 to Busan waterfront over Chuseok SEOUL, September 28 (AJP) - A shark lingering in an artificial waterway at Busan's North Port drew 483,000 visitors over the four-day Chuseok holiday, the Busan Facilities Corp. said Monday. The crowd accounted for about 85 percent of the 568,800 people counted at the waterfront park since official tracking began on Sept. 19. Daily attendance reached 101,000 on Sept. 24, 136,000 the following day and peaked at 140,000 on Sept. 26 before easing to 106,000 on Sunday. A typical holiday had drawn about 2,000 visitors before the shark appeared, putting the peak-day crowd at roughly 70 times the usual level. The shark, nicknamed "Bukangi" after Busan's North Port, was first spotted in the waterway on Sept. 18. The National Institute of Fisheries Science believes it is a bull shark measuring about 3 to 4 meters long. Busan authorities increased crowd controls around bridges and waterfront sections during the holiday as visitors gathered along the waterway to watch the animal. The city, the Korea Coast Guard and fisheries officials were set to discuss Monday how to return Bukangi to open water after it remained in the channel through the holiday. AJP Takeaways - Bukangi drew 483,000 visitors over the four-day Chuseok holiday. - Holiday visitors made up about 85 percent of the 568,800 counted since Sept. 19. - Attendance peaked at 140,000 on Sept. 26, about 70 times a typical holiday crowd. 2026-09-28 13:05:28 -
South Korea at 12th in global AI use ranking SEOUL, September 28 (AJP) - South Korea's generative AI adoption rate reached 40.6 percent in June, lifting the country to 12th place globally from 25th a year earlier, Microsoft said Monday. The share was up 3.5 percentage points from the first quarter, according to Microsoft AI Economy Institute's latest Global AI Diffusion Report. Korea's adoption rate stood at 25.9 percent a year earlier, meaning it rose 14.7 percentage points over the past 12 months. Microsoft said Korea posted the largest increase among major economies for a third consecutive reporting period. The country's adoption rate also exceeded the United States' 33.0 percent and was more than double the global average of 18.8 percent. The United Arab Emirates topped the ranking at 73.3 percent, followed by Singapore at 64.3 percent. Ireland and France recorded 49.9 percent and 49.6 percent, respectively. The figures are estimates based on aggregated and anonymized Microsoft usage data, adjusted for factors including internet penetration, device and operating-system market share and population. AJP Takeaways - Korea's generative AI adoption rate reached 40.6 percent in June. - Its global ranking rose from 25th to 12th in one year. - Adoption increased 14.7 percentage points over the past 12 months. 2026-09-28 13:00:26