This year, Amazon Web Services (AWS) marks its 20th anniversary, highlighting the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) innovations in three key areas: AI-Driven Development Lifecycle (AI-DLC), agentic AI, and physical AI.
During his keynote address at the AWS Summit Seoul 2026 on Wednesday in Seoul’s Coex, AWS Korea Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ham Gi-ho drew a parallel between companies’ past contemplation of internet utilization and AWS’s current AI endeavors. He noted the rapid evolution of generative AI, which emerged just 4-5 years ago, into agentic AI capable of autonomous decision-making and task execution. This progression has led to the transformation of development processes through AI-DLC and the expansion into physical AI, bridging digital and physical realms.
AWS’s collaborative development methodology, AI-DLC, integrates AI throughout the software development lifecycle for process coordination, planning, and architecture proposals, while humans retain control over validation, supervision, and final decision-making.
AWS reported significant productivity gains from AI-DLC adoption, with LG Electronics’ Media Entertainment Solution (MS) Division seeing a 200% improvement and CJ Olive Young completing five minimum viable products during a three-day workshop.
In the realm of agentic AI, Samsung Electronics has implemented an AWS-based autonomous cloud operating agent for its Samsung Account Platform, serving over 2.1 billion users globally. This implementation has slashed recovery times by over 90% and aims to detect issues within 10 minutes. Other Korean industry leaders, including LG Electronics, Yanolja, Nexen, Hana Tour, and Lotte Shopping, are also pioneering innovative applications of agentic AI.
Ham emphasized South Korea’s potential in the physical AI era, citing the country’s dynamic ecosystem spanning AI, chip design, robotic foundation models, and robot manufacturing.
He highlighted the Korean government’s ambitious goal to lead the world in physical AI by 2030, with seven of its fifteen national AI transformation projects focused on this sector.
Ham unveiled the Physical AI Frontier Program, an AWS initiative designed to propel Korea’s physical AI industry onto the global stage. The program offers comprehensive support, from data collection to edge inference, leveraging AWS expertise and facilitating connections with leading domestic companies.
Now in its 12th year, the AWS Summit Seoul has solidified its position as Korea’s premier AI and cloud conference. This year’s event attracted over 50,000 pre-registrations and featured 18 tracks, more than 120 sessions, and participation from over 60 partner companies.
