Korean department store using AI to write ads

SEOUL, March 1 (UPI) -- A growing number of businesses are taking advantage of artificial intelligence. One such company is South Korea's Hyundai Department Store, which announced it will use AI technology to write its advertising copy starting this month.

The company said Sunday its effort will be aided by an AI copywriting system named Lewis, designed to produce copy for ads and marketing materials.

The new system is powered by HyperCLOVA, a massive Korean language-enabled AI platform developed by South Korea's top Internet company Naver. It is comparable to GPT-3 of OpenAI.

Hyundai, Korea's leading retailer, had Lewis review copy from more than 10,000 ads from the past three years using machine learning.

"Just with some specific keywords, Lewis can come up with copy for multiple ads in less than 10 seconds. Of course, the final decision on which ad to use remains with human managers," a Hyundai official told UPI News Korea.

"In the past, it took minimum of a few weeks to write new ads. With Lewis, however, three or four hours is sufficient," he said.

Asked to craft ad copy for a perfume with the two key terms "art fair" and "20-somethings," Lewis quickly came up with a phrase (in Korean), "Wanna be on the inside? Let's come together at Hyundai."

In response to two other key terms, "spring" and "school orientation" (Korea's school year starts in March), the program offered, "Your new start, captured in a fragrance."

Lewis is named after British writer C.S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia.

Industry experts expect the advent of ChatGPT will likely prompt more companies to embrace AI solutions.

"Until recently, corporate leaders viewed AI as a distant technology. something to be embraced by later generations," Seoul-based business tracker Leaders Index CEO Park Ju-gun said in a phone interview.

"But ChatGPT has demonstrated that AI is ready for use now. As a result, more and more corporations will prepare themselves to take advantage of AI technology for various aspects of business sooner than later," he said.

The share price of Hyundai Department Store slumped 1.27% Monday and 0.55% Tuesday on the South Korean stock exchange.