▲ AI PRISM* Personalized Economic Briefing
* Editor's note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an artificial intelligence-based personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six news items tailored to each reader type.
[Key Issue Briefing]
■ AI Agent Evolution: KT (030200.KS) is expanding into an AX (AI transformation) platform company on the strength of its AI agent technology. Services are shifting toward a unified chat interface that completes everything from consultation to subscription without switching screens.
■ VASP Exodus: With approval for corporate cryptocurrency investment and enactment of a framework act on digital assets both delayed, the revenue base for domestic virtual asset service providers (VASPs) has struggled to broaden. Tighter requirements for renewing registrations have added to concerns that departures from the market could accelerate, particularly among smaller operators.
■ Humanoid Listing: Agility Robotics of the U.S. will debut on the Nasdaq next month, becoming the first pure-play humanoid robotics company listed in the West. The market is watching whether the listing can provide a turning point for robot stocks, which have been frozen by concerns over high valuations and demands for proof of profitability.
[News of Interest to Startup Founders]
1. "Predicting Customer Behavior to Make Proposals": KT Expands AI Agent Reach
- Key points: KT is upgrading its AI agents to proactively make proposals tailored to customer needs and carry them out. The company revamped its flagship customer app, MyKT, into an AI-centered app on Sept. 29. Won Man-ho, head of KT's AX Platform Division, said in an interview at the company's Gwanghwamun office in Seoul on the 15th that utterances per user rose about sixfold and the share of agent usage increased about fivefold in the week after the revamp. KT also recently launched a plugin service linking product and benefit information to ChatGPT, and plans to extend the connection to other AI platforms such as Claude. For corporate clients, it presented Token Factory, which analyzes the difficulty and characteristics of a query in real time and automatically connects it to the most suitable AI model, as a core strategy.
2. "Nowhere to Make Money, Only More Rules": Crypto Operators Exit VASP Registry
- Key points: Hyperithm, a cryptocurrency asset manager, has decided to voluntarily withdraw its VASP renewal registration submitted to the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Financial Services Commission. With the departure of the firm, which had about 750 billion won in assets under management at the end of last year, the number of domestic VASPs fell to 28 as of the end of September, down from 42 at the start of last year — meaning one in three has disappeared. With corporate investors blocked from entering the market, making it difficult to diversify into asset management, custody and settlement, wallet and custody firms posted an operating loss of 18.6 billion won in the first half of this year, double the 9.3 billion won loss in the second half of last year. Meanwhile, under the revised Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information that took effect in August, existing operators must re-register by Nov. 20. They must meet tightened standards including eligibility requirements for major shareholders, a debt ratio of 200% or less and internal controls for anti-money laundering (AML).
3. U.S. Humanoid Heavyweight Agility Robotics Is Coming: Will Robot Stocks See Sunlight?
- Key points: Churchill Capital XI, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) pursuing a merger with Agility Robotics, received approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the 13th for its merger registration statement (S-4) to take effect. The merger is expected to be completed on Nov. 2, with Nasdaq trading set to begin in mid-November. The enterprise value stands at $2.5 billion (about 3.35 trillion won), with expected proceeds of more than $620 million (about 830 billion won). Agility Robotics is a partner of Amazon and Nvidia. It has secured a backlog of more than $300 million by commercially deploying its bipedal robot Digit at Toyota's Canadian plant, GXO Logistics and Schaeffler. With Boston Dynamics having settled on not pursuing a listing by 2027 and Figure AI having turned to private funding, Agility Robotics is expected to become the only tradable pure-play humanoid stock in the West.
[Reference News for Startup Founders]
4. [Exclusive] KOSME Unveils Real Estate Appraisal System for Delinquent Firms
- Key points: The Korea SMEs and Startups Agency will operate a system tentatively named the "real estate price advisory request system" starting next year. Under the framework, the value of real estate pledged as collateral by companies that have fallen behind on policy loan payments will be assessed through consultations with professional appraisal firms. The agency is considering a method under which appraisal firms would return estimated prices within three business days during the stage of reviewing the practical merits — weighing asset prices and the scale of senior claims — before taking creditor actions such as provisional attachment. Internal staff had previously estimated prices on their own, but there were limits to assessing factories and warehouses for which no market price information was available. According to data from the office of Rep. Cha Kyu-keun of the Rebuilding Korea Party, the share of marginal firms in outstanding policy loan balances rose to 6.33% in January–August this year from 3.52% in 2021, while the number of delinquency cases increased to 20,660 in 2024.
5. Handles Dialect Questions With Ease: South Gyeongsang Launches AI Welfare Assistant
- Key points: South Gyeongsang Province formally launched the AI-based Gyeongnam Integrated Welfare Platform on the 15th, which answers questions by voice even when asked in dialect. It is the first time a metropolitan-level local government has applied AI to the welfare field, gathering welfare information previously scattered across multiple agencies into a single place. If a user enters that family members face different problems such as rare diseases, poor credit standing or industrial accidents, the platform organizes support programs for each member, along with eligibility, application methods and contact points, at a glance. The province trained the system on data covering more than 5,600 individual programs as well as laws and manuals, and launched the service after addressing 381 errors and suggestions received during five months of pilot operation.
6. Google Unveils Another In-House AI Chip That Uses 40% Less Power, for Watches and Glasses
- Key points: Google Research unveiled its next-generation Astra AI chip, developed with semiconductor company Synaptics, at its annual research showcase at its headquarters in Mountain View, California, on the 14th. Avinatan Hassidim, vice president of Google Research, said the successor uses 40% less energy than the existing product. Edge AI — artificial intelligence that processes computations within the device — runs on smartphones, smart glasses and smartwatches. The first chip to commercialize Google's low-power design architecture, the Coral neural processing unit (NPU) platform, was the Astra SL2600 series unveiled last year. Google also said it is making DeepReview, a paper verification agent that checks logical consistency and mathematical propositions, available to the general public.
