SK Telecom became the third largest shareholder in Persona AI
Korean operator SK Telecom said it acquired a stake in local AI assistant developer Persona AI, with the aim of collaborating on the launch of products designed to improve automated customer service facilities for enterprises.
SK Telecom noted that the acquisition is intended to strengthen the telco’s AI Contact Center (AICC) business, which incorporates various AI-related technologies including automated responses, data analysis and speech recognition in customer service or support centers to improve communications.
Persona AI uses its own natural language processing technology to build AI assistants featuring voice recognition, voice engine and sentence analysis. The company offers 24-hour customer service through chatbots and callbots.
SK Telecom did not disclose any financial details of the transaction but noted that it became the third-largest shareholder in Persona AI.
The Korean operator said that it aims to launch new AI-related products with Persona AI using kiosks and robots which can recognize human speech.
SK Telecom also said it will combine its speech recognition technology with Persona AI’s natural language processing tools to build new offering for businesses.
Earlier this month, SK Telecom announced an additional investment of $100 million in Anthropic, an AI safety and research company based in San Francisco, California.
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This new investment decision follows the previous investment from SK Telecom Venture Capital (SKTVC), the Silicon Valley-based venture capital arm of SK Telecom.
The Korean company has entered into a partnership agreement with Anthropic with the main aim of building a large language model (LLM) customized for telecom operators. Under the terms of the agreement, SK Telecom and Anthropic will jointly develop a multilingual LLM that supports languages including Korean, English, German, Japanese, Arabic and Spanish.
The partners said they will combine SK Telecom’s expertise in telecommunications with Anthropic’s AI technology, including its AI model, which is called Claude.
Anthropic said it will work with SK Telecom to fine-tune Claude to specific telco use cases, including industry specific customer service, marketing, sales and interactive consumer applications.
The Korean carrier and Anthropic will also work together to bring the multilingual LLM to the Telco AI Platform currently being built by the Global Telco AI Alliance.
SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, e& and Singtel have recently formed the Global Telco AI Alliance, with the main aim of creating a new customer experience through the use of AI technology. By removing the need for telcos to build their own LLMs, the Telco AI Platform will enable the members of the Global Telco AI Alliance to develop and offer AI services/apps customized to their respective markets and customers, the partners said.
Last year, Ryu Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom, had said SK Telecom aimed to become an artificial intelligence company. He stressed that the telco will shape itself into an AI company by combining AI with a wide range of connectivity technologies.