# Korea's AI future hinges on better data, programmable money: GBF speakers > Source: > Published: 2026-06-25 06:04:28+00:00 South Korean companies and financial institutions need to prepare for an AI era in which software does not just answer questions but performs tasks and makes payments on its own, speakers said Wednesday at the Global Business Forum in Seoul. At the 11th session of the forum, hosted by The Korea Herald and Herald Business, Park Min-jun of Wrtn Technologies and Korea Insurance Institute President Ha Tae-kyung argued that AI adoption will hinge less on the technology itself than on the systems built around it. Park heads Wrtn AX, the enterprise arm that the Korean generative AI startup Wrtn Technologies set up last year to bring AI agents into the operations of companies and public agencies. Such work increasingly centers on AI agents, software that does not just respond to prompts but carries out tasks on its own. Corporate demand, Park said, has moved quickly in that direction. "Last year, companies wanted AI to answer questions or generate documents," he said. "This year, they want it to extract and analyze data, automate finance work, cancel subscriptions, process refunds and issue coupons." He pointed to a customer-service agent Wrtn has run for over a year that does not just explain a refund policy but carries the refund out, collecting the details and processing the request itself. The company is building similar systems for clients including the Culture Ministry and cosmetics maker Amorepacific. The obstacle, he said, is rarely the AI. It is that companies lack usable data. In manufacturing, information is often trapped in factory equipment or paper records. Even firms with digital systems may label the same product differently across affiliates, or keep related data in disconnected silos, leaving an agent unable to read across them. "When companies actually try AI transformation, most reach the same conclusion: Preparing the data is the hardest part," Park said. "If the whole process takes three months, building the agent may take only two weeks." Wrtn, which Park said has raised about 130 billion won ($84 million), turned to AI to run its own operations leanly before selling that experience, after concluding it could not match the resources or engineering pay of far larger rivals such as OpenAI and Google. Ha, a former three-term lawmaker who became president of KII in September 2024, extended the discussion into finance, arguing that autonomous AI agents will need programmable money to make payments without constant human approval. "AI agents and stablecoins are a pair. They move together," Ha said. Stablecoins are digital tokens pegged to a currency such as the dollar. Their advantage, Ha said, is that they are programmable: Today's payment systems still assume a human entering a password or tapping approve, while an agent needs money that can carry conditions in code. The shift could reshape insurance by automating small claims, he said. A flight-delay policy, for instance, could pay out the moment the delay data arrives, with no forms to file and settlement made instantly in stablecoin, turning insurance into something embedded invisibly in a transaction rather than a product consumers avoid. To get there, the institute has pursued a series of domestic firsts, accepting stablecoins for a crypto-literacy course, paying small crypto learning incentives and drafting internal guidelines to hold bitcoin. Ha said the moves have repeatedly drawn caution from financial regulators, even as the Digital Asset Basic Act that would give them a legal footing sits stalled in the National Assembly. His broader point was blunter. "Korea has strong manufacturing, culture and technology," Ha said. "But finance is the weak link." mjh@heraldcorp.com