South Koreans and AI: why optimism beats fear in 2026

South Korea shows unusually high public enthusiasm for artificial intelligence, driven by a national policy push, a dominant semiconductor industry and widespread everyday use.

Only 16% of South Koreans say they are more concerned than excited about AI, the lowest of 25 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center, compared with 50% of Americans who said they were more worried than excited. A majority of Koreans use AI every day, either as a personal assistant or at work, according to surveys by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

What is fuelling the enthusiasm

The national government has made AI a central economic strategy. President Lee Jae-myung pledged to push South Korea into the ranks of the “top three AI powers” and after taking office in 2025 launched the Presidential Council on National AI Strategy and a sovereign AI foundation model project to fund homegrown models. Lawmakers passed the AI Basic Act in 2024, a comprehensive law intended to promote AI development while setting light-touch guardrails.

Domestic tech infrastructure and industry amplify that policy stance. Samsung and SK Hynix supply much of the world’s high-bandwidth memory chips that run the Nvidia hardware used to train AI models; both companies’ soaring shares helped the Kospi stock index reach record highs in 2026, and each company was valued above $1 trillion.

Culture and everyday technology use also matter. Street-level deployments and consumer experiments are common: unmanned immigration scanners, interactive bus-stop kiosks, robot food delivery and AI webcomics and virtual K-pop idols. Gaming and internet-cafe culture underpin digital literacy and early adoption. Between 2019 and 2023 South Korea’s domestic gaming market expanded by 47% to 22.96tn won, with exports up 41% to 10.96tn won; esports and PC bangs remain visible parts of urban life.

Those industry, infrastructure and cultural factors feed model development too. The 2026 Stanford AI Index ranked South Korea as having the third largest number of notable AI models worldwide, using metrics such as state-of-the-art advances or citation rates.

The blind spots and tensions

Policy and industrial momentum have outpaced social testing and, at times, triggered backlash. In 2025 the government rolled out AI textbooks that contained factual inaccuracies and data-privacy risks, prompting criticism for deploying them without a pilot program. Government support also prioritizes accelerated development over stronger regulatory limits: the 2026 Stanford AI Index found 70% of South Koreans say advancing science and medicine through AI innovation is a bigger priority than protecting industries through regulation.

Economic anxiety persists despite enthusiasm. Sixty-four percent of South Koreans fear AI could displace human labor and increase inequality, even as 52% believe it could raise productivity. Corporate deployments have provoked labor resistance: after Hyundai announced in January that it will deploy Atlas humanoid robots across its car factories, the Hyundai Motor Group union said, "Without labor-management agreement, not a single robot using new technology will be allowed to enter the workplace." A generation reliant on screens and precarious work turns to AI in private life as well: 46% of South Koreans in their 20s have used a chatbot to read their fortunes, according to Korea Gallup, and many use chatbots for job and financial advice.

Why it matters

South Korea’s mix of state strategy, world-leading chipmakers and a culture that quickly adopts new tech creates a compact ecosystem that accelerates both innovation and social exposure to AI. That concentration lets a relatively small country “punch above its weight” in model development while also compressing the policy trade-offs: rapid deployment can boost competitiveness but can also surface harms faster, from classroom errors to industrial labor disputes.

What to watch

Track three signals: how the Presidential Council’s sovereign foundation model project proceeds and which firms it funds; whether follow-up regulation tightens after the AI textbooks backlash; and how labor negotiations proceed at major manufacturers rolling out humanoid automation. Those milestones will indicate whether South Korea balances rapid adoption with stronger social safeguards or doubles down on acceleration alone.