The Complete Guide to Using AI as a Marketing Professional in South Korea in 2025

South Korea's AI moment matters for marketers: the domestic AI market is growing fast - Invest KOREA estimates a 12.1% rise in 2025 to KRW 3.43 trillion - while new rules are reshaping how campaigns must be run and disclosed.

The AI Framework Act and related guidance (covering generative AI labeling, "high‑impact" systems, and new transparency and domestic‑representative rules) create both compliance risks and practical openings for smarter personalization and automated creative testing; see analysis of the Act and its transparency mandates at the FPF briefing and the Chambers practice guide for legal detail.

For marketing teams, the takeaway is clear: master prompt design, verifiable sourcing, and user‑notice workflows now, not later - skills taught in Nucamp AI Essentials for Work 15-week bootcamp to help teams apply AI tools, write effective prompts, and stay compliant in Korea's fast‑moving market.

South Korea's 2025 AI landscape is a fast-accelerating blend of scale and sectoral momentum: Grand View Research projects the AI-in-marketing slice alone will reach about US$2.39 billion by 2030 with a 28.2% CAGR (2024–2030), while a broader Grand View outlook forecasts the national AI market swelling even larger through 2030 (see the South Korea AI market outlook); at the same time the wider advertising economy - already USD 12.9 billion in 2024 - is expected to climb toward USD 22.9 billion by 2033 as agencies adopt AI-driven creative and localization at scale.

IMARC's analysis notes that Korean firms are not waiting - Cheil Worldwide and Innocean rolled out custom AI systems in June 2025 to automate campaign production and compliance - so marketers should treat AI as both a compliance question and an operational lever for faster, more locally resonant creative.

The upshot for teams: expect rapid platform innovation, continued demand for AI-literate talent, and concrete ROI opportunities in content generation, real-time localization, and campaign monitoring as Korea's advertising and AI markets expand in parallel; explore the market reports for the hard numbers and timelines when building a 2025–2026 roadmap.

For marketers in Korea, the Naver ecosystem is not an optional channel - it's the language, context, and distribution layer all in one: HyperCLOVA X and CLOVA X bring Korean‑optimized language understanding and translation that outperform many global models, while Naver Cue and Naver Plus fold personalized search and commerce into everyday discovery, so campaigns that live inside Naver can reach users with far subtler nuance than generic global LLMs; read Naver's HyperCLOVA X technical overview to see why the model was trained with a heavy Korean focus and the HyperCLOVA X Think profile for its real‑world inference wins and multimodal examples like interpreting college entrance exam diagrams.

Practically, that means prioritizing native Korean prompt design, testing creatives inside Naver widgets (Clova for Ad, Clova Studio) for algorithmic fit, and treating translation/localization as strategy - not an afterthought - because HyperCLOVA X's Korean strengths and planned multimodal roadmap let marketers automate culturally faithful copy, on‑platform recommendations, and richer product discovery workflows while preserving compliance and trust across search, shopping, and content surfaces.

“AI applied to commerce will understand users' hidden search intentions and contexts, discovering and recommending desired products and benefits ahead of time.” - Choi Soo‑yeon, CEO of Naver (reported by InterAd)

Speech and multimodal breakthroughs are making AI conversations in Korea feel less like scripted chatbots and more like a fluent local colleague: the Unified Spoken Dialogue Model (USDM) developed by Naver and Seoul National University - summarized on the USDM project page - integrates prosody and cadence so systems can interpret emotion-rich, telephony-style turns without the detour through ASR→LLM→TTS, a leap validated at NeurIPS and reported in industry coverage of Naver's work; see the InterAd guide to Naver AI for context on how HyperCLOVA X already distinguishes Korean politeness levels.

For marketers that means practical gains - voice assistants, in‑app advisors and shoppable audio can pick the appropriate Korean register (from Hasipsio‑che to banmal) and preserve nuance in multimodal moments like image+audio product demos - so campaigns that use speech can feel distinctly local rather than translated.

A vivid test: a conversational ad that senses rising excitement in a shopper's voice and shifts from formal recommendation to energetic, colloquial upsell in real time - closing the loop between empathy, modality and conversion in ways text alone can't match.

“We plan to disclose the code and checkpoint of the model developed in this study.”

The AI Basic Act (formally the Framework Act on Artificial Intelligence Development and Establishment of a Foundation for Trustworthiness) rewrites the rules for anyone who builds, ships, or serves AI to Korean users: passed in late‑December 2024 and promulgated on January 21, 2025, it gives companies a one‑year runway (effective January 22, 2026) to inventory systems, label generative outputs, and install governance before enforcement begins - read the detailed legal explainer from Araki Law for the statute's structure.

The law consolidates 19 prior bills into Asia's first comprehensive AI framework and takes a risk‑based approach:

“high‑impact” systems (healthcare, energy, biometric screening, public decision‑making and similar uses) must run impact assessments, maintain lifecycle risk‑management, ensure human oversight and document safety measures, while generative AI outputs must be clearly labeled when offered to users.

It reaches extraterritorially - foreign operators affecting Korean users may need a domestic representative - and grants MSIT investigative powers and corrective orders, with administrative fines up to KRW 30 million for non‑compliance; for a policy view that contrasts Korea's moderate enforcement with the EU, see the FPF analysis.

The practical takeaway for marketing teams: prioritize transparent user notices, catalog generative workflows, and be ready to prove human oversight - think of the deadline as a 12‑month compliance sprints, not optional overtime.

Practical compliance for Korea-focused marketing teams starts with a simple operating rhythm: inventory every AI touchpoint (creative generators, personalization engines, chat/voice bots) and classify each system against the Act's “high‑impact” criteria so teams know which workflows need impact assessments and lifecycle risk management; see Securiti's operational overview for how to map developers vs.

operators. Next, bake transparency into customer journeys - notify users when AI is in use and label AI‑generated outputs in ads and content (generative AI disclosure is mandatory under the Framework Act) - a step FPF highlights as central to Korea's balanced, enforcement‑plus‑support approach.

Put human oversight and explainability controls in place for any automated decisions, document safety and monitoring measures, and run a vendor‑contract review so third‑party providers commit to data, explainability and audit support; OneTrust's preparedness guide lists these governance basics.

Don't forget the extraterritorial risks: if foreign vendors cross revenue/user thresholds, appoint a domestic representative and keep clear records (MSIT can investigate and fines reach KRW 30 million).

Treat the Jan 22, 2026 effective date as a 12‑month sprint - prioritize an AI inventory, labeling templates, impact assessments and a compliance folder that proves human oversight and risk mitigation on demand.

For Korea-focused marketing teams, vendor strategy must balance two realities: the undeniable advantage of Naver's HyperCLOVA X ecosystem for Korean nuance, multimodal and speech use-cases (Clova Studio, Clova for Ad, Naver Cue and Naver Plus all live inside that stack), and the widening influence of global ad platforms shifting toward conversational placements; InterAd's deep dive explains why HyperCLOVA X is engineered for Korean register and on‑platform discovery.

Choose local models for on‑platform personalization and cultural fidelity, and reserve global providers for cross‑market reach - while insisting on contractual support for explainability, audit trails and domestic representation where rules demand it.

Operationally, tighten “feed hygiene” (outdated product data can quietly exclude SKUs from AI recommendations), adapt creative to conversational flows, and pilot small Performance Max / AI Max-style campaigns so assets are conversation-ready rather than keyword-first; guidance on AI Mode ad formats and measurement shifts is helpful when rethinking paid/organic blends.

In short: pick a Hybrid stack (Naver + selective global AI), run vendor pilots that test conversational creatives and feed pipelines, require audit & impact-support in contracts, and measure visibility beyond clicks - impressions, brand inclusion in AI answers, and conversion quality matter more in 2025 Korea.

“AI applied to commerce will understand users' hidden search intentions and contexts, discovering and recommending desired products and benefits ahead of time.” - Choi Soo‑yeon, CEO of Naver

South Korea's 2025 hiring map makes one thing clear for jobseekers and marketers: technical roles that bridge AI and product delivery are hottest - machine learning / AI engineers, data scientists, and speech‑recognition specialists sit alongside traditional web roles like back‑end, front‑end and full‑stack developers, plus DevOps/SRE - Seoul and Daejeon are the primary hubs for these hires.

Demand is driven by firms building recommendation engines, speech and multimodal assistants, and real‑time personalization (so marketers should recruit or upskill people who pair Python and ML frameworks with practical product instincts); Dev Korea's market snapshot highlights Python, C++, and JavaScript/TypeScript as the skill pillars that open doors in Korea's AI product teams, while country‑level salary context from the Top 25 Countries report shows South Korea's AI payband clustering roughly between $40k–$70k.

For practical next steps, hiring managers should prioritize candidates with deployed projects or GitHub demos, and marketing teams should seek specialists who can turn models into measurable campaign lifts rather than standalone research - see the country hiring overview and the in‑market skills analysis for deeper context.

For marketers building hiring pipelines or partnerships in South Korea, the education landscape is anchored by research powerhouse universities - Seoul National University and KAIST stand out for producing AI talent that mixes rigorous research with industry-ready skills, while Yonsei, POSTECH and UNIST round out a deep bench of specialists in machine learning, embedded AI and multimodal systems (see the roundup of top programs).

Industry‑academia ties matter here: recent collaboration agreements with KT and joint programs like the Digitalogy Academy show these campuses are not just teaching theory but working directly with corporate models (KT will provide its Mi:dm 2.0 to SNU and KAIST for joint development of autonomous agents, RAI and human‑feedback RL), which shortens the path from campus projects to deployable marketing tech.

The practical implication for hiring: prioritize candidates with project experience in deployed systems or industry‑sponsored labs, and lean on university partnerships to run pilots that test localized Korean language models and voice/multimodal prototypes before scaling campaigns.

“We expect practical cooperation between KT researchers and researchers from Seoul National University and KAIST, as we have composed tasks that can be quickly applied to business, focusing on core problems that KT must solve.” - Oh Seung‑pil, KT

South Korea's push to coordinate AI policy and funding - now channeled through a National AI Strategy Committee and a detailed Korea AI Action Plan that includes securing thousands of GPUs and building national AI compute - turns 2025 into a practical deadline for marketing teams to act: align campaigns with domestic policy and platform realities, run a 12‑month compliance sprint to inventory AI touchpoints and label generative outputs, and choose a hybrid stack that leans on Naver's Korean‑native models for localization while using global vendors for cross‑market reach; for hands‑on skills, consider the AI Essentials for Work bootcamp (15-week AI training for professionals) to learn prompt design, verifiable sourcing and governance workflows.

Pilot speech and multimodal ads inside Naver widgets, tighten feed hygiene so product data doesn't disappear from AI recommendations, and insist on vendor contract terms that support explainability, audits and a domestic representative when needed - small pilots that measure brand inclusion in AI answers, not just clicks, will show the quickest ROI. Treat national programs and funding signals (like plans to secure large GPU pools) as strategic tailwinds: partner with universities or government pilots where possible, document human oversight, and build a compliance folder that proves you can both innovate and meet Korea's new rules without slowing down creative velocity.

“We plan to establish and implement such plans under the ‘National AI Strategy Committee'.”