Channel Corporation, which operates the artificial intelligence (AI) business messenger "Channel Talk," has declared its evolution into an "AI agent" platform. The company aims to create an "online sales clerk" that handles customer service and sales activities based on real-time data collection and analysis.
Channel Corporation unveiled this business direction at "Channel Con Japan 2026," held in Tokyo, Japan, on the 4th (local time). Channel Corporation started in 2014 as a messenger service enabling customers and companies to communicate via chat, and has grown into an AI customer communication platform integrating various channels including phone, email, and social networking services (SNS). Currently, more than 200,000 companies in 22 countries worldwide use Channel Talk.
Choi Jae-yong, CEO of Channel Corporation Japan, who delivered the keynote address that day, unveiled the new "CoS (Chief of Staff)" feature and announced the company's AI platform expansion strategy. CoS supports corporate decision-making by connecting workflows into one—from data collection across the entire company, including sales, operations, and marketing, as well as customer consultation data, through analysis to execution.
"Through CoS, everyone from executives to new employees will be able to obtain an excellent assistant," Choi said. "Our goal is to support fast and accurate decision-making based on existing data." Channel Corporation plans to launch CoS in beta in the Japanese, Korean, and global markets within this month.
The strength of CoS lies in its ability to perform real-time data collection and analysis through natural-language input alone. "With conventional data analysis, surveys took several months, but using CoS allows this process to be carried out in real time, dramatically shortening the time required," Choi explained. The plan is to implement an "online sales clerk" through CoS that connects data analysis results to revenue generation. To this end, it will support key metric management and operational efficiency by analyzing sales trends and inventory status by product, as well as customer inquiry data, in real time.
This event was held in Japan for the first time to mark the 11th anniversary of Channel Corporation's entry into Japan. It was arranged to share the company's business achievements in Japan and to introduce its technological vision and future strategy as a global AI company, with about 500 people attending, including Channel Talk's Japanese client companies and officials from the e-commerce and venture capital (VC) industries.
A localization strategy is cited as the reason Channel Corporation was able to achieve results in the Japanese market, where entry barriers are high for foreign companies. Channel Corporation has made "Customer Driven" management philosophy a core value in its service development process and focused on implementing a customer service experience reflecting Japan's distinctive "omotenashi" (おもてなし, hospitality) culture, generating more than 20% of its total revenue from the Japanese market.
In particular, analysts note that demand for AI-based customer service automation is expanding in the Japanese market, where labor shortages are intensifying due to population decline and aging. In 2024, the company launched the AI consultation agent "ALF," strengthening features that automate repetitive customer inquiries and improve consultation efficiency. "Based on the customer service experience and data accumulated in the Japanese market, we will create a new customer experience in which AI supports not only customer consultation but also sales," Choi said.
