Chair Park Youngsun: "Act 2 of the AI Era Begins... SMEs Will Play a Greater Role"

KBIZ and Ministry of Strategy and Finance Host Seminar on Strategic Economy and SME AI Transformation

Youngsun Park, Chair of the Strategic Economic Advisory Group at the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, emphasized on September 1 that as the era of artificial intelligence (AI) enters its “Act 2,” businesses must transform their organizational structures to enable coexistence between humans and AI.

Park, who previously served as Minister of SMEs and Startups, delivered the first lecture, “Strategic Economy and SME Response Strategies,” at the “Strategic Economy and SME AI Transformation Seminar” held at the KBIZ Hall of the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business in Yeouido, Seoul. Her presentation, titled “Act 2 of AI Semiconductors: The Direction of Korea's Strategic Economy,” addressed these points.

Park defined the era of coexistence between AI agents and humans as “Act 2” of the AI era. She noted, “If 2025 marks the beginning of AI agents, 2026 will be the phase of their entry, and 2027 will be the year of action for AI agents.”

Accordingly, she argued that corporate organizational structures must inevitably change to boost productivity and efficiency through AI. “As AI agents begin to enter company workflows, it will be increasingly difficult for businesses to survive with traditional organizational models,” Park stressed, adding, “Most companies that failed to adapt their organizations during the Industrial Revolution either disappeared or declined.”

On the 1st, Youngsun Park, Chair of the Strategic Economic Advisory Group at the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, is giving a lecture at the 'Strategic Economy and SME AI Transformation Seminar' held at the KBIZ Hall of the Korea Federation of SMEs in Yeouido, Seoul. Korea Federation of SMEs

Park also projected that the role of domestic small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will become even more significant in the AI era. While Nvidia last year focused on securing computing resources with its GPUs and Blackwell products, this year the company is reportedly turning its attention to the materials, components, and equipment from Korea that are essential for building AI factories.

To respond to these changes, Park highlighted the need for SMEs to collect and turn manufacturing site data into valuable assets. She emphasized the importance of converting “tacit knowledge” — such as the hand movements, actions, and voices of skilled workers — into data. For AI to truly understand the tasks and context at manufacturing sites, it is essential not just to collect data, but also to define the relationships between different data sets.

As a key task to achieve this, Park proposed the “K-Ontology Project.” She described ontology as “a way to systematically connect owned data and to clarify relationships among data,” explaining that this involves organizing relationships among people, organizations, work, documents, and systems so that AI can interpret them. Park stressed, “Korea must pursue the K-Ontology Project in order to become the ultimate winner in the true second act of the AI economy and the age of AI agents.”

The seminar was jointly hosted by the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business and the Ministry of Strategy and Finance to explore SME response strategies in areas such as AI agent commerce and AI/robotics. The event was attended by over 200 industry, academic, and government representatives, including Chair Park, Heo Jang, the Second Vice Minister of Strategy and Finance, Kim Kimoon, Chairman of the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business, and Kang Myungsoo, President of the Korea Association of SMEs Policy Studies.

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