AI Expands Accessibility Through Phone Services, Says SK Telecom

"For the elderly, booking a train ticket through the KTX app can feel quite challenging. However, if they can call an AI agent to handle the process, I believe 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.

Jo emphasized that while traditional phone and text services aimed to connect people, the era of AI will enable these tools to perform tasks and solve problems on behalf of users.

As part of the government's 'Everyone's AI' initiative, SK Telecom is focusing on improving AI accessibility through phone and text services, particularly for digitally vulnerable populations who may struggle with app-based AI.

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 additional apps. Jo noted, "While phone and text are very traditional, their reach is 100%. By simply stating what you want over the phone, we aim to create a service that truly acts as 'your personal assistant.'"

SK Telecom is advancing its services beyond simple question-and-answer interactions to create proactive AI agents that can identify user needs and resolve issues autonomously. For instance, if a user forgets a doctor's 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 arrival time, and if the call is missed, that fact is clearly confirmed. Expanding into everyday service areas is our direction."

The goal is to provide this service to all citizens, regardless of their telecom provider, by utilizing phone and text as tools for universal AI access.

To ensure a seamless phone and text AI experience, 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 Jo anticipates synergies from this development. He stated, "By fine-tuning specific models of A.X K2 for our purposes, we believe we can effectively implement them. As new models emerge, we will optimize and integrate the most suitable ones into our system."

The company is also focused on enhancing speech recognition accuracy to better understand user intent and interpret conversational flow, preparing for various dialects and unusual situations. Jo noted, "We have trained on a significantly larger dataset compared to models from Chinese companies, and we expect high levels of performance from SK Telecom."

Minimizing latency, a critical aspect of conversation flow, is also a priority. Jo explained that if latency exceeds two seconds, conversations can become awkward and uncomfortable for users. SK Telecom is working to ensure stable voice quality and uninterrupted dialogue flow.

He added, "We aim to connect our speech-to-text (STT) and text-to-speech (TTS) systems with lightweight models developed in our 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 stated, "We connect our call agents through a nationwide mobile network, and all operations occur within SK Telecom's secure internal network, which is not accessible to unauthorized individuals."

Through the Everyone's 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 period next month, the company plans to pilot features for making and receiving calls on behalf of users, with plans to enhance these functionalities before launching to the public.