"For the elderly, booking a KTX train ticket through the app can be quite challenging. However, if they can simply call an AI agent to handle the process, everyone can experience the benefits of AI," said Jo Hyun-deok, head of SK Telecom's AI phone service, during an interview on September 22 at SKT Tower in Seoul. He emphasized that while traditional phone and text services aimed to connect people, the AI era will enable these tools to perform tasks and solve problems on behalf of users.
SK Telecom, participating in the government's 'Universal AI' initiative, is focusing on improving AI accessibility through phone and text services. This effort aims to enhance access for digitally vulnerable groups who may struggle with app-based AI usage.
The company is also developing an 'App-less' service that allows users to access AI services solely through phone calls and text messages, without needing to install a separate app. Jo noted, "While phone and text are traditional methods, their reach is 100%. By allowing users to express their needs over the phone, we aim to create a 'true personal assistant' service through this project."
SK Telecom is advancing its services beyond simple Q&A to include proactive AI agents that can identify user needs and resolve issues autonomously. For instance, if a user forgets a hospital appointment, the AI could call them in the morning to remind them and even arrange a taxi to the appointment. The company is also exploring systems that could handle payment processes.
Jo mentioned, "We are considering scenarios where the agent calls a restaurant to inform them of the user's arrival time, and if the call is missed, that fact is clearly communicated. Expanding into everyday service areas is our goal."
The service aims to be available to all citizens, regardless of their telecom provider, utilizing phone and text as tools to deliver universal AI access.
To ensure a seamless phone and text AI service, SK Telecom is investing heavily in technology development. The 'A.X K2' model, which is part of a foundation model project led by the Ministry of Science and ICT, has reached its final stages, and the company anticipates synergies from this development. Jo stated, "By fine-tuning specific models of A.X K2 for our purposes, we believe we can effectively utilize them. As new models emerge, we will optimize and integrate the most suitable ones into our system."
The company is also focused on improving speech recognition accuracy to understand user intent and interpret conversation flow, preparing for various dialects and unusual situations. Jo expressed confidence in SK Telecom's high level of completion, stating, "We have trained on a significantly larger dataset compared to models from Chinese companies."
Latency, a critical aspect of conversation flow, is also being addressed. Jo noted that if latency exceeds two seconds, conversations can become unnatural and inconvenient for users. SK Telecom is enhancing its technology to ensure stable voice quality and uninterrupted dialogue.
He added, "We are working to connect our speech-to-text (STT) and text-to-speech (TTS) systems with a lightweight model developed in the foundation model project to reduce processing time. We are striving to achieve the ideal latency of 1 to 1.5 seconds with our current technology."
Security measures are also in place. Jo explained, "We connect the call agents through a nationwide mobile network, and all operations occur within SK Telecom's internal network, which is a secure area that is not accessible to unauthorized individuals."
Through the Universal AI initiative, SK Telecom is aiming for 5 million active users by the end of the year and is in discussions with the government to achieve this goal. Jo confirmed, "We are building our phone and text agents to ensure they meet quality standards aligned with our objectives." During the beta service next month, the company will pilot features for making and receiving calls on behalf of users, with plans to enhance these functions for public release in December.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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