Shinsegae Group to enhance competitiveness with AI technology

[Courtesy of Shinsegae Group]

Executives from Shinsegae Group, including those from Emart and Gmarket, met with world-renowned artificial intelligence (AI) expert Dr. Andrew Ng on Tuesday.

According to Shinsegae Group, around 20 executives gathered at the Josun Palace Hotel to meet with Ng, who is a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University and one of the four leading scholars in the AI field.

Ng delivered a lecture on AI market changes and retail response strategies while also engaging in discussions with the executives. The event was attended by key figures such as Lim Young-rok, who heads Shinsegae Group’s Strategic Management Office, Emart CEO Han Chae-yang, and Gmarket CEO Chung Hyung-kwon, along with other representatives and IT officers from major group affiliates. Shinsegae Group explained that the purpose of this meeting was to align with the expanding presence of AI across various industries and to design future strategies accordingly.

Ng also emphasized the importance of understanding AI trends specific to each industry and seizing opportunities, saying, “Shinsegae Group, with its extensive retail portfolio, should actively use AI to innovate retail moving forward.”

He and Shinsegae executives had an in-depth conversation about how Shinsegae could leverage AI, with Ng praising Shinsegae’s efforts to integrate AI not only in e-commerce platforms like SSG.com and Gmarket but also in offline stores like Emart. “With rapidly advancing generative AI, the traditional ‘search-based retail’ is transforming into ‘conversational retail,’ and companies should undertake numerous AI-driven projects, even in small areas,” he said.