Development of actionable AI agents that link multiple services to complete everyday tasks through to booking and payments is gaining speed in South Korea.

A key question is how smoothly AI can execute tasks that users previously handled by switching among multiple apps themselves. There are many challenges to resolve, including securing access permissions and handling authentication and payments. Korean companies are responding by forming consortiums or consultative groups and expanding partnerships with service platforms.

According to the industry on Sunday, SK Telecom is focusing on implementing its "Everyone's AI" service, which it aims to officially launch in December, as an actionable AI agent. Its goal is to use SKT's A.dot as a customer touchpoint to connect and provide services across areas such as healthcare, employment and finance.

It is also preparing detailed use scenarios. Key examples are healthcare and job support. If someone suddenly needs to find a hospital while traveling, the idea is to let the user book a hospital appointment in A.dot without separately installing the Goodoc app and then travel there using TMAP Mobility navigation. After treatment, the user can also be linked to a Habit Factory process to file an indemnity insurance claim.

It also plans to apply the agent to job preparation. Based on a user's job postings of interest and current situation, it would link with Liner, a consortium participant, to help write and edit self-introduction letters, then use the completed letter to conduct a mock interview by phone with an AI interviewer.

It is also developing payment functions. SKT is pushing to establish a domestic standard for "agentic pay" with consortium participants Shinhan Card and Hana Card. Options under review include purchasing airline tickets based on conditions set in advance by the user, or completing a purchase based on pre-approval when an out-of-stock product is replenished.

It is also developing a function that first identifies a user's situation and suggests needed services. It plans to advance "agent memory" that remembers information obtained from call summaries, messages and schedules, and to use it as a basis to suggest or execute tasks that the user did not explicitly request.

Cho Uk-rae (조욱래), project lead for SKT's A.dot business development, referred to Meta's "Muse" and OpenAI's "Dots" at "Nightro Track Day" on Oct. 22 and explained the development direction for actionable AI agents that identify a user's situation and complete actual tasks.

Cho said, "We want to combine the memory we can refer to with user queries to build a service that understands context and connects through to execution." He added, "I think it only has meaning as an actionable agent if we continue expanding smart private-sector service areas in addition to public services."

He also said more cooperation with external services is needed. Cho said, "In the end, for it to connect to the daily lives of the entire population, far more services need to be connected with each other," and stressed the need for collaboration with outside companies, saying it would be difficult to achieve with SKT capabilities alone.

Korean startup Vooy is also developing an AI agent that connects external services to carry out users' everyday tasks. Vooy is an AI agent startup being fostered through a venture-building approach by Hashed, a blockchain and frontier tech venture capital firm, and Hashed CEO Kim Seo-jun (김서준) is overseeing the project.

When users make requests in natural language in a chat window, it finds and executes the necessary services based on personal information such as preferences and schedules. It has used existing messengers such as KakaoTalk and Telegram as customer touchpoints and recently introduced its own app.

Vooy is also focusing on expanding external service integrations. Through the Open Builders Alliance (OBA), a cooperative group of developers and companies that includes Hashed and Vooy, it plans to encourage Korean companies to open their application programming interfaces (APIs) and increase the number of services that can be connected to AI agents.

Vooy's integration targets include restaurant bookings and orders on Catch Table and Yogiyo, product searches on Naver Shopping, travel-related services on MyRealTrip and Naver airfare, and schedule management on Google Calendar. The actual scope of automatic execution differs by service, however.

A Vooy official said, "In Korea, there still are not many service functions opened externally for AI to use." The official added, "We plan to expand companies participating in OBA and increase API integrations for each service so users can finish what they need within Vooy without going through multiple apps."

Some in the industry also say Korean companies may have an advantage over global companies in terms of partnerships for AI agent services. They say cooperation among Korean companies could be a differentiating factor because it would be difficult for global companies to individually partner with the many specialised service providers in Korea.

One AI industry official said, "For now, major Korean platforms still maintain closed ecosystems, making it difficult to advance AI agent services, but it will be hard to stick with that approach forever." The official added, "I expect the competitiveness of Korean AI agents will come from a Korea market-specialised strategy through dense service partnerships."