Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.
SK chairman calls for full-fledged AI transformation
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won speaks during the 2026 Icheon Forum 2026 in Gyeonggi Province, Saturday. Courtesy of SK Group
By Nam Hyun-woo
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won urged executives and employees to pursue full-fledged efforts toward artificial intelligence (AI) transformation in order to seize the current opportunity stemming from the strong alignment between the group’s business portfolio and the AI value chain, the conglomerate said Sunday.
Chey made the remarks during the 2026 Icheon Forum, an annual seminar attended by SK employees and outside experts, held from Thursday through Saturday.
“Now is the time to launch our AI transformation effort at full speed across every corner of our businesses,” Chey said. “For this, we must first have to clearly define our business and determine what and how we can innovate through AI.”
He stressed the importance of AI transformation in improving SK Group’s operation capability, urging the use of AI agents across the organization.
“More than 90 percent of our employees are already using AI, but we now need AI that goes beyond individual use and genuinely helps the team by turning those efforts into organizationwide performance," he said.
Chey said SK Group is now witnessing a rare opportunity in leveraging “a full stack of capabilities needed to drive the technology, including memory chips, data center infrastructure, energy and electrification” in the company's AI transformation efforts.
He then urged executives to maintain a strong sense of urgency, saying that “this once-in-a-generation opportunity could slip away if the group fails to carry out comprehensive AI transformation at full speed.”
SK Group said executives agreed that the company's business operations should be fundamentally redesigned, much as “industries were transformed when energy systems shifted from steam engines to electricity.” They also stressed the importance of launching AI transformation initiatives quickly on a small scale before eventually expanding them.
During the forum, the group used AI agents to summarize executives' discussions in real time and even had them participate in panel discussions.
An SK Group official said the company will accelerate its AI transformation efforts based on the discussions, with executives and employees working together to drive the transition.