South Korean companies are adopting generative artificial intelligence (AI) services in different ways depending on their size, with large enterprises tending to build their own solutions while small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups lean toward indirectly subsidizing employees' AI subscription fees, a survey showed.
According to the information technology (IT) industry on Wednesday, Samsung SDS (018260.KS) recently released the findings. The company surveyed 670 officials at Korean firms that have either adopted or plan to adopt generative AI services at the corporate level. Respondents were asked which approach their companies chose among three options: building proprietary AI solutions, adopting enterprise AI products, or subsidizing employees' AI subscription fees.
Among large enterprise respondents, 43% said they opted to build their own AI solutions. Adopting enterprise AI products accounted for 35%, while subscription fee support stood at 23%. At mid-sized companies, the share of those choosing enterprise AI products (37%) was similar to those subsidizing subscriptions (36%), with 27% having built proprietary AI solutions. By contrast, SMEs and startups showed a clear preference for subscription fee support at 50%, followed by enterprise AI products at 29% and in-house AI solutions at 27%.
Samsung SDS said the choice among the three approaches was not simply driven by cost. Among companies that built proprietary AI solutions, the main reasons were preventing the external leakage of internal data (41%) and internalizing AI capabilities (40%). Firms that preferred adopting enterprise AI products prioritized preventing external data leakage (45%) and company-wide standardization (34%). For those subsidizing subscription fees, the main reasons were rapid adoption and use (45%) and verifying suitability through the use of diverse solutions (37%).
