Konan Technology, an artificial intelligence software specialist, said on Jan. 5 it has appointed founding member Yang Seung-hyun, a vice president and chief technology officer, as its new chief operating officer.

Yang has led development efforts since the company’s founding in 1999, including the Konan Search engine and its proprietary programming language, K language. Over the past 3 years, he also served as SK Telecom’s CTO, leading AI transformation spanning from large language models to building AI infrastructure.

Konan Technology, alongside Yang’s appointment, set its 2026 management goal as “accelerating the shift to AI revenue.” It plans to build industry-specific AI agents based on an expanding public-sector AX budget to increase revenue scale, while fostering AI device solutions based on its Konan AIStation AI PC as a future growth engine.

Yang said the AI market will be one where only companies that prove real commercialization capability, not simple proof-of-concept projects or demos, will survive. He said Konan Technology will combine its accumulated technology assets with capabilities for large-scale AX projects and industry-specific know-how to build a trusted AI company that supplies “commercial AI that works well.” Konan Technology appointed Choi Jung-joo, head of its AI Research Institute, as its new CTO.