KT Partners with Nonghyup and Microsoft Korea on Distribution AX Collaboration: "Boosting Agricultural Product Transactions"

Enhancing Customer Convenience and Operational Efficiency with Agentic AI

On August 18, KT announced that it had signed a business agreement with Nonghyup Economic Holdings and Microsoft Korea to promote innovation in AI and cloud-based AI Transformation (AX) in the distribution sector.

Sangwon Park, Head of AX Business Division at KT (from left), Jooyang Kim, CEO of NongHyup Economic Holdings, and Hoonsang Kim, Vice President of Microsoft Korea, are posing for a commemorative photo after signing a business agreement on distribution artificial intelligence transformation (AX). Provided by KT

This collaboration was initiated in connection with KT's project to migrate the NH Singsing Mall (Nonghyup Mall), a specialized agricultural product online mall, to a public cloud environment. KT migrated NH Singsing Mall's on-premises systems, infrastructure, network, and security environment to Microsoft Azure. Since the launch of its renewed customer-facing services last month, NH Singsing Mall has been operating stably.

The three companies plan to broaden their cooperation beyond the achievements of the cloud migration to focus on customer experience innovation using AI. Specifically, they will: jointly identify new AX business opportunities in the distribution and e-commerce sectors; pursue innovation in AI-based customer services; enhance data-driven marketing; and internalize AI utilization capabilities in the field and expand success stories.

KT will take overall responsibility for the project, including identifying and designing AX initiatives, as well as building and operating AICC. Nonghyup Economic Holdings will provide a test environment based on the status of its business and operational data. Microsoft Korea will support the implementation of global AI and cloud technologies and services, including Azure.

In particular, Nonghyup Economic Holdings will establish a personalized recommendation service and marketing framework using customer, product, and order data across its key distribution and food businesses. The introduction of agentic AI services will enable AI to autonomously understand and handle work such as inquiry responses, order confirmations, and delivery notifications, thereby improving customer convenience and operational efficiency.

Jooyang Kim, CEO of Nonghyup Economic Holdings, said, "The migration of NH Singsing Mall to the cloud marks a major turning point that enhances the distribution competitiveness of Korean agricultural products through digital technology, going beyond mere system improvement. Based on this expanded AI infrastructure, we will broaden sales channels for producers and make a tangible contribution to increasing farm incomes."

Sangwon Park, Head of AX Business Division at KT (Executive Vice President), commented, "The successful public cloud migration of NH Singsing Mall marks the starting point for AI-driven innovation in distribution. Leveraging KT's experience and agentic AI capabilities accumulated through designing, building, and operating AX, we aim to discover new AX business models within the distribution sector."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.