A survey shows the share of South Korean companies using AI is about 58 percent. That is up from 48 percent last year.

Amazon Web Services, or AWS, said this in a study titled "Unlocking South Korea's AI Potential 2026" commissioned from research firm Strand Partners.

The survey polled 1,000 business leaders and 1,000 members of the public. The report says about 624,000 companies newly adopted AI over the past year.

Some 81 percent of companies that adopted AI said productivity improved. The findings show they save an average of 14 hours a week. Nearly 6 in 10 companies also said revenue increased. Enthusiasm for further adoption was strong, with 84 percent of adopters expecting to increase AI use over the next 12 months.

The challenges companies face on AI are also shifting from adoption itself to effective scaling across the organisation. Many companies are moving beyond the stage of proving AI value and into building foundations to expand it across the organisation.

The study says the share of companies remaining at the basic stage of AI adoption fell to 54 percent from 70 percent, while those reaching the most advanced stage rose to 26 percent from 11 percent, more than doubling. ICT, at 41 percent, and manufacturing, at 35 percent, lead advanced adoption, and 35 percent of startups reached that stage. Small and medium-sized businesses stood at 25 percent, while large companies were at 9 percent.

AI has also become a board agenda item. Some 67 percent of organisations cited AI adoption as a top or important strategic priority. But the assessment says this commitment has not been translated into a consistent system. Only 27 percent of companies had a formal and comprehensive AI strategy, and 47 percent said they lacked a reliable way to measure return on investment, or ROI, for AI. Only 24 percent had clear and consistent standards to measure whether AI adoption was successful.

Ham Ki-ho (함기호), head of AWS Korea, said, "Korean companies have built considerable momentum in AI, and many companies are already delivering tangible results in productivity and growth." He said, "Now the key issue is not whether to adopt AI, but how to scale it across the business as a whole. As AI technology becomes increasingly advanced, organisations with strong foundations across data, capabilities, governance and technology will be best positioned to turn successful AI use cases into sustained business value."