LG Electronics is expanding its AI transformation (AX) as a companywide work-innovation drive and will ramp up in-house AI use. The plan is to apply AI-based work-innovation ideas proposed directly by employees to real tasks and later expand them across the in-house AI platform.
LG Electronics said on the 29th that it recently held its first-half AX hackathon this year and identified work-innovation projects using AI. About 2,100 employees took part in the event and proposed more than 700 ideas, and after about two months of screening and verification, five outstanding projects were finally selected.
One of the top projects, "24-hour fully autonomous work execution system," is a solution in which an AI agent carries out the entire software development process. It automates major development steps from task intake and classification, requirements analysis, code implementation, testing, documentation, and reporting, and people participate only at stages that require decision-making or collaboration. LG Electronics said its own verification found that about 80% of all tasks can be automated, and it expects to save more than 1,200 work hours per employee annually. The company plans to expand its application to general office work going forward.
A product packaging design automation solution was also selected as an outstanding project. The company said AI performs 3D modeling, packaging design, and container load optimization, cutting an average 120-hour design job to about 1.5 hours.
A logistics and supply chain management (SCM) specialized solution is a service that manages vessel operation risks by analyzing about 100,000 logistics and shipping data points in real time. It reduced the time for data retrieval and analysis from more than three hours to about one minute.
In addition, a platform that integrates support for in-house administrative tasks such as attendance management and expense processing, and an AI-based ad content creation and proposal system were also selected as outstanding projects.
LG Electronics will conduct proof of concept (PoC) for these projects, expand the applying organizations in phases, and ultimately register them as sub-agents of the in-house work AI platform "LGenie" for companywide use.
LG Electronics said it is developing the AX hackathon into a practical culture of work innovation rather than a simple idea contest. It aims for "bottom-up AX" that boosts productivity based on ideas unearthed by frontline employees in real work processes.
Marking its third year, the AX hackathon saw many ideas that go beyond AI chatbots or simple repetitive task automation to redesigning entire work processes. Participation has also steadily expanded. About 500 people joined the first event in the first half of 2024, but the first half of this year exceeded 2,100, up about 50% from the first half of last year. The cumulative number of ideas proposed through this year comes to 2,000.
Cho Jeong-beom, head of the LG Electronics AX Center, said, "We will further accelerate innovation in how we work by continuously advancing the outstanding projects identified in the hackathon so that all members can actively use AI in real work and by expanding their application companywide."