SK Telecom (SKT) has announced a $10 million investment in the generative AI search startup Perplexity AI.
The investment strengthens SKT’s position in generative AI search technology, a fast-growing area attracting strong interest from major technology companies. The collaboration is expected to enhance SKT’s AI personal assistant offerings.
Perplexity has rapidly emerged as a notable competitor to existing search and conversational AI services.
Handling over 230 million search requests per month globally, Perplexity has drawn investments from prominent industry players. It was recently recognized by the Wall Street Journal as the top performer in usability in “The Great AI Chatbot Challenge.”
SKT and Perplexity first signaled their cooperation at MWC 2024 in Barcelona, where they signed a strategic partnership agreement. This new capital commitment further cements their intent to build long-term, mutually beneficial AI capabilities. Perplexity has also agreed to invest in SKT’s Global AI Platform Corporation (GAP Co.), established last year in Silicon Valley to develop AI search services.
Perplexity’s search engine relies on a Large Language Model (LLM) and stands out for its conversational search experience, quick responses, and clear attribution of sources. Rather than returning only keyword matches, it enables users to converse with the system and receive a range of relevant results, including quotations, images, and charts.
For example, when asked to compare the skills of footballers Ronaldo and Messi, the system summarizes key information—team history, awards, scoring records—so users get a comprehensive, concise answer without combing through numerous links.
Perplexity also aims to reduce common generative AI “hallucinations” by citing sources such as news articles, videos, and blog posts. The platform proposes follow-up questions to guide deeper research and provides quick translations and summaries for English-language content.
Under the partnership, Perplexity’s generative AI search capabilities will be integrated into SKT’s AI personal assistant, A. (“A dot”), improving interactive queries, summarized search results, related search suggestions, and translation functions. SKT will contribute Korean datasets and cultural content to fine-tune the LLM, improving search quality and relevance for Korean-language users.
Lee Jae-shin, SKT’s Vice President of AI Growth Strategy, said the investment secures global competitiveness for SKT in the AI search market and will strengthen A.’s search functions as the company aims to launch a leading AI personal assistant service domestically and internationally.
Dmitry Shevelenko, Chief Business Officer at Perplexity, commented that both companies share a vision of delivering AI services that enhance everyday life, and expressed enthusiasm about offering Perplexity Pro services to SKT customers.
SKT plans to offer Perplexity Pro, a premium subscription search service, to its customers free for one year, supported by joint marketing through A. and the T Universe channels. This arrangement will make SKT the only domestic telecom provider offering Perplexity’s services locally.
See also: KPN and ABP form tower company amid rising data demand
Interested in AI and big data insights from industry leaders? Attend the AI & Big Data Expo held in Amsterdam, California, and London. The event is co-located with major conferences including Intelligent Automation Conference, BlockX, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.
Discover other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge.