[THE INVESTOR] SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest mobile carrier, unveiled an artificial intelligence service based on voice recognition Wednesday, saying it will be the starting point to the popularization of AI which will lead to fundamental changes in daily life.

“The input system evolved from keyboard to mouse and then to touchpad,” said Park Ilhwan, executive vice president of the company’s device supporting division. “Starting with NUGU (meaning who in Korean), we will lead dramatic changes in our daily lives created by voice recognition and artificial intelligence and the popularization of artificial intelligence.”

The company also introduced a 21.2-centimeter tall cylindrical device that will implement the artificial intelligence service, acting as a speaker and an LED lamp.

Global tech companies have introduced voice-activated services in recent years. Amazon.com introduced Echo, a voice control enabled speaker, and Microsoft Cortana, an intelligent personal assistant. NUGU is the first artificial intelligence service that can understand and process Korean, SKT officials said.

SK’s new AI service can deal with natural language questions such as “please tell me tomorrow’s weather” or “play some happy music” rather than just short keywords.

NUGU will be available from Thursday at a price tag of 99,000 won ($88.69), a 60 percent discount from the original price of 249,000 won. The company aims to first expand its customer base by attracting early adopters. “As more customers start using the AI service, NUGU will be able to evolve fast through cloud-based deep learning and improve the accuracy of voice recognition,” the telecom company said at the press conference. The AI service will be updated over-the-air on a weekly basis, the company said.

As early as the first half of next year, the company will open its Application Programming Interface of NUGU to third party developers and customers to develop artificial intelligence platforms together.

Initially, the voice-activated AI will provide music recommendations and playback, remote controlling home appliance, real-time weather, traffic information and other personal assistance services. The service will be gradually expanded to other areas such e-commerce and personal media, the company said.

By Park Ga-young/The Korea Herald (gypark@hearldcorp.com)