LG Uplus (032640.KS) is operating an overseas training program that dispatches employees to the United States to internalize Silicon Valley's AI-friendly and creative work methods. The move reflects an accelerated push to overhaul the company's corporate culture in line with CEO Hong Beom-sik's vision of transforming LG Uplus into an artificial intelligence transformation (AX) company.
LG Uplus held a results-sharing session for its 'Outsight D.T. (Design Thinking)' program at its Yongsan headquarters in Seoul on Tuesday, presenting project outcomes and plans for on-the-job application. Outsight D.T. is a three-month talent development program designed by LG Uplus in collaboration with Stanford University in the United States to embed 'design thinking,' a user-centered creative problem-solving methodology, into the company's organizational culture.
Design thinking proceeds through five stages: empathy, problem definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing. The methodology gained attention after Stanford University's d.school, often called the "heart of Silicon Valley," established a training manual and began teaching it to students. Big Tech firms including Meta and Google are now known to use design thinking as a "new normal" in their work. The approach aims to derive more innovative solutions by enabling flexible thinking centered on customer experience.
The backdrop for LG Uplus's adoption of design thinking training is its drive to transform into an innovative AX company. The company determined that securing future growth engines in AI requires employees to break away from rigid work methods and develop the capacity to redefine customer problems and rapidly experiment and validate solutions.
Last month, in its first-quarter 2026 earnings announcement, LG Uplus said it would focus on operational efficiency through AX internalization and the discovery of new AI businesses. Revenue growth based on AI-related businesses is also becoming visible. First-quarter AIDC revenue reached 114.4 billion won, up 31% from a year earlier, while mobile segment revenue stood at 1.6526 trillion won (up 3.2% year-on-year). AI-based services including AI features within IPTV and agentic call bots were cited as key factors driving subscriber growth.
For the first cohort, 21 employees from 10 selected teams completed a five-week design thinking master course in Korea before participating in a two-week 'Design Thinking' bootcamp at Stanford University and exchanging with Big Tech practitioners on the ground. This cohort was tasked with developing methods to apply design thinking to four future businesses, including IPTV, AI agents, and AI security tools.
At the results-sharing session, participants explained that they have begun to have a meaningful impact on internal AX innovation. For example, a developer team that had completed a task of building an interactive app prototype in three hours using AI in the United States said, "After returning, we applied vibe coding to planning work that had been done manually using Excel and PowerPoint, improving our work processes."
With the goal of routinizing AI-based internal service planning and development in this way, LG Uplus plans to continue running the program by dispatching its second cohort to Silicon Valley on the 21st of this month. Yang Hyo-seok, Chief Human Resources Officer and Vice President of LG Uplus, said, "The 21 talents who have returned equipped with world-class global perspectives will serve as catalysts for innovation in the company-wide way of working and become the starting point for spreading new positive energy throughout the organization."
