S.Korea’s KT will innovate media and content companies with AI

South Korean telecom giant KT Corp. plans to innovate its media and content businesses with artificial intelligence as it looks for new growth engines amid the saturated local telecommunications market.

KT on Monday unveiled Magic Platform, a business-to-business (B2B) media solution that produces and analyzes video content. The platform will be offered in the form of a website for customers who do not have infrastructure.

“The media sector is KT’s top three businesses besides telecommunications and AI,” Kim Hoon-bae, head of the telecom group’s media platform business, told reporters at an event to introduce the media and content business strategy. “We aim to lead the market by adding unparalleled competitiveness in AI technology to the media value chain.”

KT aims to increase media and content revenue by 19% to 5 trillion won ($3.6 billion) in 2025, up from 4.2 trillion won in 2022.

The group has twelve media-related affiliates, such as KT Studiogenie Co., the producer of Netflix hit drama series Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and KT Skylife Co., a broadcasting unit. Since February, more than 13.3 million households had subscribed to the telecommunications giant’s media services.

AI FOR ALL MEDIA affiliates

KT aims to actively use AI across its media businesses.

The Magic Platform allows users to produce desired videos with generative AI while enhancing old and low-definition content into high-definition content.

The group plans to add a feature that will allow customers to find desired people, actions and music in a video clip through AI analysis of the content in the second half.

In the fourth quarter, KT will introduce an AI set-top box on the device, offering viewers customized content with AI features that identify their preferences.

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KT plans to strengthen its content business with a target of double-digit growth in content sales. The group’s content revenue grew 25.7% to 640 billion won last year.

KT Studiogenie will lead the group’s drama production, while KT Skylife’s subsidiary Skylife TV Co. is set to provide entertainment shows.

Skylife TV had high expectations for a program with South Korean star chef Paik Jong Won, entitled Les Miserable by Paik Jong Won.

“When the content market became a red ocean with endless competition, only top channels can survive,” said Kim Ho-sang, CEO of Skylife TV. “We will not spare production costs to introduce better content and become one of the top seven channels by 2026.”

KT Studiogenie plans to localize its intellectual properties in overseas markets such as Taiwan, Mongolia and Germany.

The aim is to expand its activities into co-production of content and remakes of the sales and distribution of the existing drama series.

Write to Ji-Eun Jeong at [email protected]

Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.