Samsung’s AI overhaul starts in the boardroom – then reaches every employee

Samsung Group is rolling out one of its most comprehensive internal AI initiatives to date, opening external generative AI (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude to employees while putting its most senior leaders through intensive training to redesign how the conglomerate operates.

The group said the tools would be made available this month to boost productivity in areas such as software development and marketing. But for an organisation spanning semiconductors, smartphones, displays, home appliances and consumer electronics, the ambition reaches well beyond office automation. Samsung said it wants to embed AI across its entire value chain as a first step toward becoming what it calls an “AI-native company.”

That ambition reflects a growing pattern among global manufacturers using AI not only to raise individual productivity but to reshape factory operations, logistics and business decision-making – and, with it, the skills their workforces are expected to bring to the job. For Samsung, the starting point is the C-suite.

This month, the group will run an AX Boot Camp – AX stands for AI transformation – for around 50 presidents of its affiliates, the first intensive AI programme conducted for the group’s entire leadership cohort. Rather than a general technology seminar, the programme will require attendees to work directly with AI tools and to develop practical plans to redesign business processes. Affiliate heads are expected to announce a joint AI transformation vision during the programme and present strategies for applying AI within their own organisations.

The training extends down from there. Samsung is running AI programmes for roughly 2,300 executives across its affiliates through August 12, and plans to provide AI education to all employees by the end of the year. The sequencing echoes a theme that Samsung Electronics Chair Lee Jae-yong set out in his New Year’s message, in which he framed the shift as a change in how the organisation operates rather than a product story. “We need to completely change the way we work and our organisational DNA,” Lee said, adding that AI should be applied across the business, from research and development through to production, marketing and support functions.

Supporting that change will fall in part to new teams. Samsung will establish dedicated AI organisations at every affiliate, responsible for AI transformation strategy, data governance, model management and talent development – placing workforce capability alongside technical governance in their remit. Accountability, meanwhile, sits with the top of each business, with chief executives directly overseeing the application of AI across eight core functions: development, procurement, manufacturing, logistics, marketing, sales, customer service and corporate support.

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The organisation likened the effort to its digital transformation in the 1990s, when it used emerging technologies to expand beyond its domestic market and become a global technology player. This time, it said, AI would be the catalyst reshaping management practices and surfacing new growth opportunities – though widening access to external tools carries risks for a manufacturer handling large volumes of sensitive product, process and customer data. Samsung said it would strengthen its security framework as it expands access to outside GenAI services.

The initiative also turns inward a strategy Samsung has been pursuing in its products, from the Galaxy S24 – marketed as its first AI smartphone lineup – to AI features across its home appliances and connected devices. The latest move applies the same focus to how the organisation itself runs, reported The Korea Herald.