South Korea takes a positive spin on AI

A Pew Research Center survey across 25 countries found that only 16% of South Koreans said they were more concerned than excited about AI, the lowest share in the survey. In the United States, 50% said they were more worried than excited.

Surveys by South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry found that a majority of South Koreans use AI every day, either as a personal assistant or in work. The figure suggests that AI has entered routine life before many of the public disputes seen in other markets have taken hold.

South Korea has been one of the world’s most connected societies, and its public has often tested technology early. AI web comics, virtual K-pop idols, and humanoid monks have all found space in public life. State agencies have also moved early, with AI textbooks in schools and AI eldercare robots in welfare centres. Behind much of this activity is a belief that technology is tied to national development and to South Korea’s place in the world.

Technology has often been treated as a route to growth, status and security. AI is now the latest expression of that view, but it has also brought pressure to remain ahead of other countries and to avoid missing a sector that many governments see as central to the next stage of growth.

Policy and industry

South Korea’s optimism has been shaped by policy. Chihyung Jeon, a professor of science and technology policy at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, said the government has made an AI-powered Fourth Industrial Revolution part of the country’s path. He said South Koreans have been told, across years of public policy and investment, that AI can help create a better future.

South Korea’s economic history is tied to technology. After the Korean War, the country used manufacturing and industrial policy to move out of poverty. In the 1970s, South Korea built steel and ships. In the 1980s, it expanded into semiconductors. In the 1990s, it became associated with broadband. In the 2000s, smartphones became part of its industrial identity.

The semiconductor sector now sits at the centre of that story. Samsung and SK Hynix supply much of the world’s high-bandwidth memory, a component used in Nvidia hardware that trains AI models. By 2026, both companies had helped push South Korea’s Kospi index to record highs, with each company valued above $1 trillion.

President Lee Jae-myung has pledged to make South Korea one of the world’s top three AI powers, alongside the United States and China. After taking office in 2025, he launched the Presidential Council on National AI Strategy, backed large purchases of computing power and started a sovereign AI foundation model project to support Korean companies building domestic AI models. The government has also supported Samsung, SK Hynix, and other semiconductor companies through tax credits and low-interest financing.

Regulation has followed the same development-first approach. In 2024, the legislature passed the AI Basic Act, one of the first comprehensive AI laws in the world. The law promotes AI development, and according to the 2026 Stanford AI Index, 70% of South Koreans said advancing science and medicine through AI mattered more than protecting industries through regulation.

The same index ranked South Korea third in the world for the number of notable AI models, using measures such as state-of-the-art performance and citation rates. For a country with a smaller population than the United States or China, AI is seen as a way to gain influence beyond its size.

Risks and resistance

Any development-first approach has weaknesses. Jeon said the national agenda on AI gives priority to economic development, leaving less space for discussion of the social, political, and ethical effects of the technology. In 2025, when the government faced a backlash over AI textbooks that contained factual errors and raised privacy concerns, with critics saying textbooks had been introduced without a pilot programme to test their effect on learning.

Public optimism also coexists with fear about work. In January, Hyundai announced plans to deploy Atlas humanoid robots in its car factories. The Hyundai Motor Group union objected, saying that no robot using new technology would enter the workplace without labour-management agreement, the dispute showing that support for AI can weaken when automation reaches the shop floor.

Sixty-four percent of South Koreans fear AI could displace human labour and worsen inequality, while 52% also believe it could increase productivity, a split that suggests a public that accepts AI as a national project but worries about the effect on wages and job security.

Korea Gallup found that 46% of South Koreans in their 20s had used a chatbot to read their fortunes. That use sits alongside wider pressure facing young adults, including screen dependence, unstable work, costly housing, and delayed marriage.

South Korea is a country where public trust, industrial policy, and economic memory have made AI adoption more acceptable than in many other places. Evidence points to a country where the risks are becoming harder to keep outside the national story. AI is being sold as a route to growth, but the public argument is shifting as its costs move closer to classrooms, workplaces, and private life.

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