More Korean workers rushing to paid AI classes

Lim, 40, a marketer at a large corporation, recently spent her Saturday and Sunday attending a class on Claude Code taught by a well-known instructor in Seoul’s Seocho District.

Claude Code is an artificial intelligence (AI) coding agent developed by U.S.-based Anthropic. She learned how to set up a Claude Code environment, connect it to email, calendars and collaboration and document management tools, and automate repetitive tasks.

The class had around a dozen office workers, and the atmosphere was “reminiscent of a high school senior classroom,” Lim said. During the two-day course, which ran for nine hours each day, participants reportedly stayed in their seats even during breaks. Lim paid 1 million won ($700) for the class. Despite the hefty price tag, she said the money was well spent. As she watched her colleagues become more proficient at using AI, she felt a fear of missing out or that she was falling behind.

Lim is now applying what she learned at work. She uses AI not only to research marketing cases, compare materials and draft reports, but also to retrieve records of past projects and identify problems during service planning. AI is involved in “70 to 80 percent” of her work, she said.

As more companies encourage employees to use AI, a growing number of workers are paying out of pocket to learn how to use the technology. They see AI training as a new form of self-development. Shin, 30, who took the course despite not using Claude Code at work, said the money was “an investment worth making” because the skills could come in handy when taking on new responsibilities or changing jobs.

The perception of AI proficiency as a key workplace skill is spreading rapidly. A recent survey of 1,057 Korean adults commissioned by Google and conducted by British consulting firm Public First found that 74 percent were interested in AI skills training. Among employed respondents, 82 percent expected AI skills to become important to their jobs within the next five years.

But not all employees use AI entirely of their own accord. Hwang, 38, who works at a foreign company, said her employer displays weekly AI usage scores for individuals and departments. Although the scores are not part of formal personnel evaluations, she sometimes uses AI to rewrite even simple emails.

“I feel like I shouldn’t be dragging down my department’s average,” she said.

A study by Kim Dong-gyu, a research fellow at the Korea Employment Information Service, surveyed 305 workers in IT development, design and office administration and found both positive and negative emotions surrounding AI use. Among positive responses, a sense of achievement from producing satisfactory results was the most common, at 57.4 percent. Among negative responses, the most frequently cited was the burden of learning new technology, at 52.1 percent.

Oh, 37, said she feels pressured when her company tells employees that learning AI would be beneficial.

“If a company expects employees to use AI, it should also provide training and cover the costs,” she said.

In Kim’s study, providing education and training was the most frequently cited organizational response to the spread of AI, selected by 41.3 percent of respondents. The findings suggest that many workers want companies to provide institutional support for AI education and hands-on training rather than leaving employees to develop these skills on their own.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.