LG Uplus to launch AI voicebot, recommendation tools

South Korean telecommunications carrier LG Uplus is poised to discover more commercial use cases of artificial intelligence, as it looks to launch a voicebot for mom-and-pop stores and a personalized recommendation system for its TV viewers and online shoppers, its data head told a news conference on Thursday.

LG Uplus aims to launch a new conversational voicebot service that understands the natural speech of human customers and interacts with them by as early as August this year. This differentiates it from the conventional automated response system, as no pre-recorded speech will be involved.

The AI engine that runs the system -- designed to assist store owners with focusing on essential tasks -- will grow more sophisticated in the next year to come by collaborating with partners including LG AI Research, holding company LG Corp.‘s research arm behind hyperscale AI engine Exaone.

Also by 2023, LG Uplus seeks a fully personalized recommendation system that works on both LG Uplus’ internet protocol television-based services -- including Uplus Kids World -- and Uplus Kok, an e-commerce platform.

LG Uplus‘ AI-based services have already been in the works. Its consumer behavior analysis tool was launched in April and has been applied for optimal location of education-related facilities by one-on-one educational service provider Daekyo and marketing strategies by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

“A telecommunications carrier would have accumulated a tremendous amount of data, but the outcomes may vary depending on the way the data set is viewed and refined,” said Gabe Hwang, chief data officer at LG Uplus.

Hwang added that LG Uplus looks to double the number of in-house data scientists and engineers to about 400 by 2024.

This is Hwang’s first public appearance since he joined LG Uplus in January. Before joining LG Uplus, Hwang served various roles for data-driven business transformation in the United States.

Hwang was formerly vice president of product, data platform and data monetization at US entertainment firm WarnerMedia, a subsidiary of AT&T. He was also head of content intelligence practice at AT&T Big Data to lead the development of advanced data science models.

(consnow@heraldcorp.com)