"AI isn't something that's nice to have; if you don't use it, you fail. That's because competitors will use it. We now live in a time when you simply use it and move fast."
Era Forecast author Song Gil-young said this at the third ChosunBiz "Biz Morning Insight (BMI)" lecture held at the Westin Josun Seoul in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 24th, noting that "artificial intelligence (AI) must be accepted not as a choice but as a basic tool of production." The lecture's topic that day was "the birth of a lightweight civilization."
Song compared the spread of AI to kiosks. Kiosks are technology that have existed for a long time, but they spread quickly across restaurants, hospitals and stores through the COVID-19 pandemic. With ordering and payment no longer needing staff, operations changed, and once a competing store started using kiosks, others had no choice but to follow.
Song said, "Using a kiosk can cut one person's labor cost, but in the end the rent goes up by that much," adding, "That's because building owners judge that, since other stores use kiosks, they can pay higher rent." He added, "AI is the same," and said, "Even if I don't use it, if a competitor does, I eventually have to. That's why AI is unavoidable."
Song picked "AI agents" and "ontology" as the core changes this year. If last year was the year of large language models (LLMs), this year is moving into a stage where AI agents actually carry out tasks, he said. He noted, "This year is the year of agents, and from the end of the year things will run on ontology."
Ontology is a knowledge system that organizes scattered work knowledge and decision standards within an organization so AI can understand and use them. Song said, "To run agents properly, you must draw out the knowledge and tacit understanding inside the heads of members in the company," adding, "From now on, whether you have something to draw out from your head will be your personal competitiveness."
As AI enters work, the speed of decision-making at corporations is also getting much faster. In the past, even for a single exchange-rate outlook, executives would hold meetings, gather data, model it and write reports, which took months. But using AI makes such analysis and reporting possible in real time, he said. Song noted, "It used to take a week to get the data, three weeks for modeling and two months to write the report," adding, "Now AI can pull it in real time."
He said these changes will also reshape competition among corporations. If one corporation uses AI to grasp the market, expense and demand more accurately, it can compete by lowering prices. Song said, "Margins will head to the extreme," adding, "If the side that knows the information more accurately starts lowering prices first, corporations that used to keep thick margins will be pushed out without even a chance to respond."
He also said the middle layers inside organizations will shrink quickly. In the past, corporations split work into small pieces and, to manage this, had multiple approval layers such as Director General, Vice Administrator, Director and others. But as AI and automation systems take over task allocation, aggregation and review, the role of middle managers is diminishing, he explained.
At this point, Song cited the so-called "Assistant Manager Kim" example. When a boss assigns urgent work, the organization thinks of Assistant Manager Kim, the smartest hands-on worker, but Kim is already busy and doesn't welcome extra tasks. Since salaries are fixed, more work doesn't immediately bring more pay. By contrast, AI doesn't talk back, doesn't eat and can handle three shifts alone.
Song said, "If it's the same task, it won't come to humans," adding, "From now on we will only do what AI can't do." He continued, "Reading, writing, judging and explaining—desk jobs across the board are now affected by AI," and said, "People must find the work AI cannot do."
Song defined the essence of a "lightweight civilization" as speed. A lightweight civilization means not merely shrinking the size of organizations, but reducing steps in decision-making and execution. He said, "A lightweight civilization isn't about heavy versus light; it's a fast civilization," adding, "The middle steps that drag a two-day task into two weeks are disappearing."
The race for speed is also shaking price structures. Song explained the collapse in unit prices through the example of advertising production costs. Ads that used to cost hundreds of millions of won to produce are quickly getting cheaper with AI tools. He said, "There was a time when producing a TV commercial cost 500 million won per piece; now it's 20 million won, and if made with AI it's down to 2 million won," adding, "Heavy organizations are finding it hard to maintain prices."
He also forecast that the agency industry will be affected. Functions of organizations in the middle that handled connections and representation—such as travel agencies, advertising agencies and insurance agencies—can be replaced by AI agents and a direct-transaction structure, he said. He noted, "The moment you use agents, existing agencies can disappear," adding, "Once direct transactions are possible, the role of the companies in the middle shrinks."
AI is also changing the relationship between individuals and organizations. In the past, you had to belong to an organization to do big things, but now it's an era in which individuals use AI tools and networks to compete directly with corporations. Song said, "Individuals have begun to compete with corporations," adding, "The unit of production will further fragment from teams to individuals."
Song likened a lightweight civilization to "a civilization of the sky." He said, "A civilization of the sky must fly, and to fly the body must be light," adding, "A bird is large in volume, but its bones are hollow." He added, "We must lighten up quickly. Stickiness alone won't let you take off," and said, "Prepare your share in the new civilization."