LG AI Insight 2026 A Field Report : Charting the Present and Future of AI

AI is no longer confined to research labs. It is reshaping industries, redefining workflows, and finding its way into the fabric of everyday life. The rapid rise of generative AI, Agentic AI and physical AI has only accelerated this shift — and with it, the questions about where AI goes next have become harder to ignore.

Image 1. LG AI Insight 2026

On March 19, LG AI Research brought those questions into focus with LG AI Insight 2026, an event designed to share the latest research and real-world applications while deepening collaboration across LG affiliates. That around 1,300 employees registered in advance says something about the appetite for this kind of conversation within the organization.

AI Tech Seminar : EXAONE in Practice

Co-head of LG AI Research, WooHyung Lim opened the seminar with a vision that grounded the day's discussions: "We dream of a world where AI empowers everyone to perform at the level of an expert and where experts can use that to push into entirely new territory." It was a useful frame for what followed. 

Image 2. WooHyung Lim, Co-head of LG AI Research 

Honglak Lee, the other co-head, then walked through LG AI Research's recent progress and where the institute is headed. His message was direct: the goal is not just to build competitive foundation models, but to develop Expert AI and Agentic AI that are genuinely deployable in industrial settings systems that move the needle on real customer problems, not just benchmark scores.

Image 3. Honglak Lee, Co-head of LG AI Research 

What made this seminar stand out was the range of people on stage. Rather than keeping it internal, LG AI Research invited partners and affiliate leads to speak from their own experience. Yungbum Jung (Executive Director, FuriosaAI) and Hyundong Lee (Co-Founder, Superb AI) — both part of MSIT-led “Proprietary AI Foundation Model” Project consortium — gave candid accounts of the technical challenges they tackled and what differentiated their approaches.

Image 4. Yungbum Jung, Executive Director of FuriosaAI (Left) / Hyundong Lee, Co-Founder, Superb AI (Right)

Other sessions covered ChatEXAONE adoption across LG affiliates, LG Uplus's work on on-device Agentic AI, and a detailed case study from the National Pension Service which used EXAONE Data Foundry to build domain-specific training data and run validation at scale. The National Pension Service case was a particular standout. It clearly demonstrated that we’ve moved past the 'demo' phase and into deploying high-stakes, operational AI in heavily regulated sectors.

AI Poster Session: The Latest Research, at a Glance

The poster session ran all day and covered 46 projects in total — a broad cross-section of what LG AI Research is currently working on. A few that drew the most foot traffic: a patent search system built on ChatEXAONE, the EXAONE Data Foundry pipeline for domain-specialized LLMs, and EXAONE Path 2.5, a pathology-focused foundation model.

Image 5. LG AI Insight 2026 Poster Session

The format worked well. Employees could stop, ask questions, and get into the details with researchers directly — the kind of exchange that doesn't happen in a standard presentation.

Special Programs: Expanding the AI Experience Through Hands-On Learning

A hands-on booth gave attendees the opportunity to experience ChatEXAONE, powered by K-EXAONE — the top-ranked model from the Ministry of Science and ICT's foundation AI project — alongside solutions from consortium partners. 

Image 6. LG AI Insight 2026 Interactive Demo Zone

On-site registration was also open for LG AI Graduate School and affiliate AI education programs, giving employees a concrete next step if the day sparked an interest in going deeper. Separate one-on-one time with LG AI Research experts rounded out the program for those looking for more specific guidance on their own work.

LG AI Insight 2026 was, at its core, a practical event — less about announcements, more about showing where the work actually stands and what it takes to apply it. That combination of research depth and real deployment experience is what made it worth the day.

Image 7. Introduction of LG AI Graduate School at LG AI Insight 2026

Experiencing the AI-Driven Future, Firsthand

The feedback from the floor was just as telling as the sessions themselves. Sunwoo Kim, a Senior Associate at LG CNS, put it simply: "I'd always wondered in a vague way where AI might actually fit into my work. Seeing these real-world cases laid out made the possibilities feel a lot more concrete." 

Pyeong Lee, a Principal Professional at LG Electronics, walked away with a similar impression. For him, it wasn't just about the tech—it was the realization that someone was finally tackling the "hard" problems. "You could see the genuine effort going into solving the bottlenecks we face on the job," he noted. He left with a clear sense that the work at LG AI Research isn't happening in a vacuum; it’s deeply connected to the challenges affiliates deal with every day.

Image 8. LG AI Insight 2026 Poster Session

 
LG AI Insight 2026 was designed to close that gap between research and reality. Whether it fully succeeded is for those in the room to judge, but the intent—and the trajectory—was unmistakable. LG AI Research is moving fast, and the collaboration with partners across the group is only going to get tighter from here.