SK Group said on April 14 it has produced an AI video featuring quotes and management anecdotes from two generations of the group’s founding leadership and is sharing it with all employees to mark its 73rd anniversary. The five-minute video features founding chairman Choi Jong-kun (최종건) and former chairman Choi Jong-hyun (최종현). It starts with a scene of rebuilding Sunkyung Textiles in 1953 after the Korean War and is structured as a look back at the group’s growth.

The video has been screened since April 13 on the media wall on the first floor of SK Seorin Building in Jongno district, Seoul. It is also aired on internal broadcasting so any SK Group employee can watch. The company said production began after SK Group Chairman Choi Tae-won (최태원) suggested that it would be good to use AI to share the founding generation’s bold spirit and intellectual DNA with employees.

In the video, the founding chairman looks back on growth that ran from the decision to produce nylon to the success of the Dakpyo lining brand and the acquisition of the Walkerhill hotel. He recalls it by saying, "I can do it, I must do it, and if I do it, it will be done. That is my belief." The former chairman, who took over management after the founding chairman died in 1973, delivers the message, "Prepare, plan and challenge continuously," alongside the process of vertical integration from oil to textiles. The video also includes the process leading up to the decision to enter the mobile telecommunications business.

SK Group succeeded in acquiring Korea Mobile Telecom in a public tender for privatisation in 1994 by submitting a price four times higher than the market price. It became the foundation for what led to SK Telecom and SK Hynix today. Near the end of the video, it includes part of a 2022 anniversary speech by Choi that said, "With the fierce drive and noble spirit we inherited from the two of you, and with our solid inner strength, let us once again make a new history by taking a big leap forward."

This is the first time the company has produced an entire video using AI. In the past, it used computer graphics or hired stand-ins and filmed live action. The video was produced by AI learning from historical materials including SK Group’s corporate history, books by the former chairman and the 'Sunkyung Sillok', a collection of materials including about 3,000 voice recording tapes restored digitally last year. The video was also screened at a 73rd anniversary Memorial Day event held on April 8 at Seonhyewon in Jongno district, Seoul.

An SK Group official said, "This is a point in time when the group’s growth history, spanning founding, oil, mobile telecommunications and semiconductors, is 이어지는 with AI." The official added, "We expect that the founding generation’s legacy of 'bold spirit' and 'intellect' — their original mindset and message — will become a compass and wisdom in a rapidly changing management environment."