South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT is building AI for All, a planned public service that would give citizens a free, unlimited general-purpose AI chatbot alongside an AI agent for government services. The ministry has selected consortiums led by SK Telecom, Kakao, and KT, with a beta phase and nationwide rollout planned during 2026.
The project is more than a chatbot giveaway. It ties universal access to a domestic-model requirement, public-sector integrations, government-backed computing infrastructure, and a long-term plan to make AI part of everyday work, education, and public services.
South Korea wants to turn AI into a public service
The planned chatbot is described as free of charge and without usage limits. Alongside it, the public AI agent is intended to help people identify relevant government benefits, understand procedures, and handle applications. Later plans also mention reservations and payments.
That combination gives AI for All two jobs: provide a general-purpose assistant for daily use and act as a doorway into government services. Bae Kyung-hoon, South Korea’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister responsible for science and ICT, has presented the project as basic infrastructure for working, learning, and daily life in the AI era.
The service is still being developed as a staged national program. The official plan set out a beta phase before a broader rollout during 2026; it does not describe a completed nationwide deployment on September 20, 2026.
What the AI for All plan includes
The domestic-model rules are central to the project. At least 50% of each participating service must use a qualifying South Korean sovereign foundation model. At least another 30% must use domestic models developed by companies other than the service provider.
Foreign models can be used where they are minimally necessary, but the government will not subsidize the portion of a service that uses them. In practice, the policy links public funding to the use of South Korean-developed models rather than simply paying for access to a foreign chatbot.
The government also plans to provide 512 NVIDIA B200 GPUs during 2026. From 2027, the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to support the cost of delivering the services to the whole population and continue upgrading the AI agents.
The ministry also says participating companies may develop revenue models using user prompt data collected while providing the services. That makes the eventual handling of prompts a consequential part of the project’s design, alongside the access promise itself.
How people would reach the services
The three selected consortiums are planning different entry points for the public:
| Consortium leader | Planned access or integration | Planned public-service role |
| SK Telecom | Apps, the web, phone calls, and text messages | Help people find relevant government services and handle applications |
| Kakao | Kakao’s messenger ecosystem, including a planned AI calling service with LG U+ | Help people find relevant government services and handle applications |
| KT | Integrations across Daum, communications, media, IPTV, and partner services | Help people find relevant government services and handle applications |
MSIT selected the three consortiums after evaluating six applicants. The selection puts familiar communication and platform services at the center of the rollout: people could encounter the public AI through a chat app, a website, a phone call, a text message, or other existing services rather than through one standalone portal.
What does “free and unlimited” mean here?
In the official plan, it means the general-purpose chatbot is intended to be free of charge and without usage limits. The wording describes the policy goal; the service’s eventual operating details will depend on the rollout of the participating systems.
The public-service agent has a narrower stated purpose than a general chatbot. It is designed to identify benefits and explain or assist with applications, not simply answer open-ended questions. That distinction matters: the government is proposing an AI interface for public administration, with access routes that could reach people through services they already use.
Why the rollout matters beyond South Korea
AI for All is also an industrial-policy experiment. South Korea is pairing broad public access with requirements that favor domestic foundation models and with direct support for the computing infrastructure needed to run them. The approach aims to reduce dependence on foreign platforms while giving local companies a role in a service intended for the entire population.
The wider debate is not limited to price or convenience. Broad AI deployment raises questions about employment, cyberattacks, deepfakes, algorithmic bias, and dependence on automated systems. For South Korea, the test is whether a government-backed service can make AI broadly useful while embedding it in public institutions, communications networks, and everyday administrative tasks.
The next concrete milestones are the beta services planned by the selected consortiums and the nationwide rollout targeted for later in 2026, followed by planned government support for service delivery from 2027.
