Only 3.6% of Domestic Companies Have Adopted AI... "No Plans for Adoption in the Future"

KDI Announces Survey Results on Corporate Awareness and Status of AI

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyunjung] A survey revealed that fewer than four out of 100 domestic companies have adopted artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Although companies that adopted AI technology saw an average revenue increase of 4.3% compared to before adoption, the limited application areas and technologies used indicate that the AI ecosystem is still underdeveloped.

The Korea Development Institute (KDI) announced the results of the "Survey on Corporate Awareness and Status of AI" on the 14th. The survey was conducted from October 23 to November 16 last year, targeting 1,000 companies in total?500 large enterprises (including mid-sized companies) and 500 small and medium-sized enterprises with 20 or more employees.

Only 3.6% of the surveyed companies had adopted AI technologies and solutions. Among them, large enterprises (91.7%) mainly used enterprise software equipped with 'AI' (50.0%). Instead of core technologies like 'machine learning' (25.0%) and 'deep learning' (5.6%), more companies utilized mature technologies such as 'computer vision including object recognition' (47.2%). The application areas were also limited mainly to 'IT automation and cybersecurity' (44.4%). Among companies that adopted AI technology, 77.8% evaluated that it helped management and performance, with average revenue increasing by 4.3% and workforce by 6.8% after adoption.

Companies currently identify the 'United States' (70.7%) as the leading country in AI technology, but they expect South Korea, China, and Japan to be strong alongside the U.S. in five years. When rating the U.S. as the leading country at 100 points, South Korea’s AI level was evaluated at about 70 points.

However, respondents viewed the possibility of AI replacing jobs as low or believed that even if replacement is possible, it would be a somewhat distant future event. Half of the surveyed companies responded that AI would not replace their jobs or workforce, and those who believed replacement would occur estimated it would take about 20 years for AI to replace more than 50% of jobs and workforce.

The willingness to adopt AI technology was also found to be weak. Most companies that have not yet adopted AI technology (89.0%) responded that they have no intention to adopt AI technology in the future, and among companies that have adopted AI technology, only 38.9% expressed willingness to adopt additional AI technology going forward.

Regarding policies to promote AI activation, responses included 'support for research and development' (23.3%), 'training AI personnel' (21.6%), 'building AI infrastructure such as data openness' (19.8%), and 'regulatory improvement and establishment of governance systems' (17.5%).

KDI analyzed that in actual industrial sites, companies are skeptical about adopting AI technology due to reasons such as 'lack of AI technologies and solutions tailored to corporate demand,' 'lack of trust in AI,' and 'shortage of experts,' and concerns about job and workforce replacement were not significant.

Seo Junghae, Director of the KDI Economic Information Center, emphasized, "The government should strive to develop universal AI technology through gradual AI foundation projects that can include small and medium-sized enterprises that currently lack the capacity to adopt AI."