Microsoft’s M365 Copilot, a generative artificial intelligence (AI)-based work tool, is leading the innovation of companies, especially in Korea, and the case of companies that have succeeded in converting AX (AI) by using it well is drawing attention.
KB Life is the main character, and the company introduced Copilot to all executives and employees in May to develop customized AI agents that meet their own needs to maximize work efficiency.
Hong Sung-kyu, head of KB Life IT Division, said in a recent interview, “M365 Copilot has become a key tool to promote an autonomous and flexible culture of digital-based work by automating repetitive and structured tasks and supporting employees to focus on more creative and strategic tasks. Through this, we intend to realize organizational culture innovation that ultimately leads to fundamental changes in the way we work.”
KB Life has been using Microsoft’s Outlook and Chat features on a limited basis since 2018. Although it was difficult to utilize major functions such as Teams due to the nature of financial companies, the Financial Services Commission’s designation of innovative financial services in 2023 eased some of the cloud-related regulations, allowing the introduction of additional services from MS, including Copilot.
“Compared to other AI platforms, MS has a strong software ecosystem ranging from M365 Office, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook, and Windows,” Director Hong said. “It has greatly benefited from the M365 Copilot service as an AI platform service that naturally combines with existing work and document management methods while reducing adaptation fatigue caused by the introduction of AI services.”
Since the introduction of Copilot, KB Life has been operating its own AI agents ‘M365 Q&A’ and ‘Meet You’ to increase the utilization of AI by its executives and employees. M365 Q&A is a service that can solve problems through chatting with AI agents when MS’s service use is poor or an error occurs.
MeetYou simplifies meeting calls and schedule coordination that occur frequently during work.
In order to increase employees’ adaptability to AI, KB Life conducted beta tests and training for employees even before the introduction of Copilot.
Even after its introduction, it is focusing on creating a culture in which AI can be used as a familiar work tool by conducting hands-on education and AI utilization workshops together.
Director Hong said, “As AI has accumulated experience in scheduling meetings and handling repetitive tasks instead, work immersion and efficiency have increased at the same time,” adding, “Most of all, the education was conducted in a way that can be used directly in the field, so the experience was great.”
“We will also hold various events such as AI study groups and workshops, in-house agent competitions, and best use case awards,” he said, explaining that through this, we plan to increase in-house AI literacy in all directions.
Based on its successful introduction in-house, KB Life plans to apply AI agents to the customer service area. Currently, KB Financial Group is producing and using a “KB Customer Language Guide” that contains relevant information to contain customer-friendly language in guidebooks and notification messages.
The problem is that it is difficult to modify the entire guide phrase according to the guide each time, and inspect it whenever a new phrase is created. KB Life plans to streamline this by introducing AI agents that have learned customer language guides.
In line with the steady upgrade of MS services using AI, KB Life plans to further strengthen its collaboration with MS. Director Hong said, “We are also actively using recently updated MS apps such as ‘Creating’ that can produce images, banners, words, Excel, and PowerPoint with the help of Generative AI, and ‘Analist’ that supports statistical work and trend analysis. We will be with MS as a partner in innovating KB Life’s working culture.”
[Reporter Kim Tae Sung]
