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SK Telecom is accelerating the development of conversational artificial intelligence (AI) services by partnering with 'Perplexity,' which is emerging as a rival to Google.

Yoo Young-sang, CEO of SK Telecom [Image source=Yonhap News]

Yu Young-sang, CEO of SKT, held a joint press conference with Perplexity, a U.S.-based AI search specialist company, on the 4th and expressed his ambition to lead the paradigm shift from traditional keyword search to AI-powered conversational search.

Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of Perplexity, who visited Korea for the first time for this conference, personally introduced Perplexity's AI conversational search engine. He stated that Perplexity plans to continue cooperation exclusively with SKT among Korean companies, including mutual investment, joint marketing, and technical support to enhance AI agent services for global markets such as A. Dot.

Founded in 2022 by Srinivas, a former OpenAI member, Perplexity is a unicorn (a private company valued at over 1 trillion KRW) providing generative AI-based conversational search engine services. It operates in more than 50 countries worldwide and processes over 230 million search requests monthly. In May, it ranked first overall in a chatbot usability evaluation published by The Wall Street Journal.

CEO Srinivas said, "The Korean market is attractive due to its fast communication networks and infrastructure, and Korean users are particularly familiar with AI services like A. Dot." He added, "Through this collaboration, Korean customers are expected to experience innovative search services that allow conversational, human-like interactions with AI."

CEO Yu also responded, "Cooperation with Perplexity, which has emerged as a dark horse in the global AI search market, will create unprecedented new value," and said, "We will strive to provide innovative customer experiences through AI not only to domestic but also global customers."

Perplexity to Invest in SKT AI Subsidiary... Pushing Global Business

Following SKT's $10 million investment in Perplexity in June, Perplexity is also set to invest in SKT's Silicon Valley-based subsidiary, Global AI Platform Corporation (GAP Co.).

The mutual investments between the two companies cover not only AI business and services but also technological cooperation. GAP Co. is focusing on developing and promoting global AI agents, known as 'PAA (Personal AI Agent),' targeting the global AI market.

SKT and GAP Co. are developing PAA with the goal of launching a beta version in the U.S. market within the year, and Perplexity will collaborate as a search partner for PAA. PAA is a personal assistant service that understands users and connects them to the most suitable services based on their intentions, utilizing a multi-LLM strategy that employs multiple large language models (LLMs) appropriately.

For example, if a user requests, "Where are good restaurants in Seoul to introduce to foreigners?" PAA determines that a 'search' is needed and connects to search partners such as Perplexity among multiple LLM candidates.

Perplexity plans to enrich the search information and sources provided to users to improve PAA's answer quality, and SKT intends to continue collaborating with various search services and LLM developers beyond this.

'A. Dot' Surpasses 5 Million Subscribers... Joint Development of AI Search Engine

As of the end of August, A. Dot surpassed 5 million subscribers, showing continuous growth from about 3.2 million at the end of last year. On the 26th of last month, SKT fully revamped A. Dot, integrating Perplexity's AI search engine alongside multi-LLMs such as ChatGPT, Claude, and A. Dot X.

SKT explained that while continuously enhancing A. Dot, it plans to consider monetization for features and services that customers find sufficiently valuable based on analysis of usage patterns, volume, and feedback.

To advance the A. Dot service, SKT and Perplexity have agreed to jointly develop an AI search engine optimized for Korea. With search optimized for the domestic internet environment and culture, SKT will provide Korean language data and cultural content, while Perplexity will handle fine-tuning of the search engine to enhance AI search services.

CEO Srinivas said, "Korean users tend to enjoy complex questions and want quick answers, and I hope this partnership will help increase A. Dot's popularity."

Additionally, all SKT customers can use Perplexity's paid search service 'Perplexity Pro' (worth about 290,000 KRW annually) free of charge for one year on mobile or PC.

Starting today, SKT will send MMS notifications to customers about using Perplexity Pro. Customers can click the link to enter the Perplexity event page through the A. Dot app and enjoy one year of free use with a simple registration.

Perplexity Pro is characterized by high answer accuracy, advanced search, and image upload features. It also reduces hallucinations by providing accurate sources for search results.

According to global market research firm MarketsandMarkets, the conversational AI market is expected to continue growing with an average annual growth rate of 24.9% until 2030. It is projected to grow from $13.2 billion (approximately 17.5 trillion KRW) this year to $49.9 billion (approximately 66 trillion KRW) by 2030.