South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Information Society Agency (NIA) selected 12 teams to advance to the finals of the 'Everyone's AI Lab AI service competition' and held a launch event in Seoul.

The ministry said on Wednesday the competition is part of the 'Everyone's AI Growth Ladder Project' launched in August. It was designed to help members of the public turn their ideas into AI services and support outstanding services so they can lead to start-ups and commercialisation.

From Aug. 18 to Sept. 6, the idea contest received 390 AI service plans from across the country. Fifty teams were selected for the preliminary round after evaluating problem definition, the need for the proposal, creativity, the appropriateness of AI use and feasibility. Presentations were then assessed at five regional 'Everyone's AI Lounge' venues nationwide, starting in the Gyeongsang region and followed by the Jeolla-Jeju region, the Seoul metropolitan area, the Chungcheong region and the Gangwon region. A final 12 teams were picked for the finals.

Ideas selected for the finals aim to solve problems with AI ranging from everyday inconveniences to industrial, regional and public issues. Examples include recommendations for petrol stations based on analysis of travel routes and fuel costs, verification of the scientific basis for supplement advertising claims, and personalised recommendations for public housing. Industrial and public-sector ideas also made the finals, including forecasting demand for greenhouse gas emissions permits, optimising port arrivals and predicting demand and order volumes for small businesses. Participants include high school students, university and graduate students, office workers and public officials.

About 60 people are to attend the launch event, held on Wednesday at SpaceShare Euljiro Entrance Center in Seoul, including officials from the ministry and NIA, the 12 finalist teams, and representatives of mentor companies such as Kakao, Naver Cloud, NHN Cloud, LG Uplus and SK Telecom.

The event will introduce the finalists' service ideas and announce the results of matching participating teams with mentor companies. Starting this month, finalist teams will receive about two months of coaching and mentoring on service planning and technical implementation from AI and IT experts at each mentor company. The ministry will also provide public and private data and APIs, AI tokens for vibe coding, cloud resources and development support tools through 'Everyone's AI Lab'.

Advanced services will be selected as award winners after a final presentation evaluation in December. Total prize money is 28 million won. One grand prize team will receive an award from the deputy prime minister and science minister and 10 million won. One top excellence award team will receive an award from the head of NIA and 5 million won, among others.

Separately, the ministry and NIA are recruiting participating teams for the '2026 Everyone's AI Lab AI service development project' through Oct. 8. They will select up to 100 projects from individuals or teams seeking to implement everyday inconveniences, repetitive work, local issues and start-up ideas as AI services. They also plan to provide follow-up support worth 100 million won in total to help selected outstanding projects upgrade their services and pursue commercialisation after the programme ends.