Telecom firms compete head-on for AI assistant service

(123rf)

Competition is heating up among major South Korean telecommunication companies to take the lead in the market for artificial intelligence assistants.

LG Uplus, the country's smallest telecom company by market share, is set to launch a call-recording service, dubbed, “ixi O,” next month, according to industry sources on Friday. It is expected to offer services such as call recording, summary function and spam call and voice phishing filtering.

Currently, AI assistants are evolving in various forms, including daily functions like playing music using voice recognition technology and providing weather updates, as well as linking with smart homes and vehicles.

"Telecom companies’ AI technology has been limited to a few services like AI contact centers and chatbots, but recently, competition is expanding to AI assistant services, beginning with call recording,” an industry source, who asked for anonymity said. “AI assistant competition will be driven by adding various functions to services.”

As LG Uplus enters the call recording market dominated by SK Telecom, the competition among telecom companies for AI assistant service technology is expected to intensify. The market leader SK Telecom debuted its service in September last year.

In particular, the competition in the domestic AI assistant market, which began with AI speakers, is expected to heat up with the upcoming release of Apple’s iPhone 16 series as both telecom carriers allow iPhone users to record their calls.

Following the launch of Apple’s Siri in 2011, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa have been introduced, with AI assistants now embedded not only in smartphones but also in smart speakers, TVs and vehicles.

The AI assistant market is expanding gradually here as well. Since SK Telecom introduced the AI speaker Nugu in 2016, AI speakers such as KT Corp.’s Giga Genie, Naver’s Friends and Kakao’s Kakao Mini were introduced.

According to the market research firm Global Information, the global AI assistant market is expected to grow from $14.77 billion this year to $60.83 billion by 2029. The figure represents an average annual growth rate of 32.7 percent.