SK Telecom said on Thursday it has wrapped up its in-house AI hackathon, 'AX Challenge', held from May 19 to 21 under the theme 'AI that changes daily life' to accelerate group-wide AX, or AI transformation.

The company said a total of 54 teams and 115 people submitted proposals for the SKT AX Challenge. It said 50 percent of participants were members of non-development organisations.

Twenty teams that passed the online preliminary round competed in the main contest over two days on May 19 and 20. On the first day, dubbed Build Day, participants developed demo pages from the morning until midnight. On the second day, Demo Day, they demonstrated and presented completed services.

In the final round held on May 21, four teams were selected as top entries: an A.dot Auto quality management system based on A.X K1 called 'Autopilot'; a 'T-Care AI Agent' that analyses app screens and visually guides where to operate next; an 'AI Persona Simulation Agent' that generates personas based on customer experience to identify service improvements; and 'MAIA (Multi-Agent Infrastructure Automation)' to detect and respond to infrastructure failures.

SKT said it plans to pursue formal development of the services created in the hackathon by linking them with AXMS (AX Management System), SKT's in-house AX support platform, and to expand their application across work sites group-wide.

Jae-heon Jeong (정재헌), SKT's CEO, visited the hackathon site in person to encourage participants immersed in the event, and also took part in judging the final round.

Jeong said the hackathon was designed to look back on services from the customer's perspective and improve the way people work with AI. He said the company will hold regular in-house hackathons so that employees' passion for AX can become seeds of innovation that bring real changes to customer experience.