From AI Companions to Light Sync Generation... KOTRA Publishes Next Year's Trend Book

"KOTRA World Trend 2027"

Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) has published a global trend book aimed at helping companies capture new business opportunities amid the global industrial landscape shifts driven by new technologies.

Book cover of 'KOTRA World Trend 2027.' KOTRA

KOTRA announced on the 16th that it has released 'KOTRA World Trend 2027' (formerly known as the World Trends Series That Excite Korea), which forecasts changes in the global market for the following year.

Now in its 16th edition, this year's book introduces "the Light Sync Generation," who live lightly and flexibly, and "AI Companions" as key trends for next year. It highlights how the current generation, whose bodies have become lighter thanks to the popularization of GLP-1 (Glucagon-like Peptide-1) class anti-obesity drugs, is reducing the burden of ownership by consuming ultra-low-priced products and is embracing a lifestyle of forming temporary companions just for movies, travel, and exercise, rather than maintaining burdensome human relationships.

Furthermore, the book demonstrates through a variety of international examples that AI, now deeply embedded in daily life, is expanding human-to-machine and human-to-human relationships, establishing itself as a "companion" rather than just a tool.

The book features global case studies of technological and lifestyle changes, such as nursing homes that have become places of burnout escape for Generation Z (born in the late 1990s to early 2010s), romantic relationships with AI, AI systems for deepfake detection, and medical AI control systems designed to prevent emergency room "bypass" cases.

To mark the publication, KOTRA will jointly host the "2027 Global Business Trend Briefing" with Kyobo Book Centre at the Seoul Gwanghwamun Kyobo Building on the 19th. The event's theme is "2027 Business Solutions Through the Lens of Macroeconomics, AI, and Lifestyle." Speakers include Woo Hyung Jeon, Head of Trade and Investment Information at KOTRA, Jong Hoon Park, Director of the Knowledge Economy Research Institute, Dae Sik Kim, Professor at KAIST, and Hye Yeon Kim, a choreographer known for AI art performances. They are expected to provide insights into next year's global trends and business implications.

Kang Kyung Sung, President of KOTRA, stated, "In the era of AI transformation, we hope to help Korean companies and readers stay ahead of global trends and step into new markets first."

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