[Exclusive] Lee Jae-yong asks, "Why can’t we do it?"… Samsung financial units dispatched on an 'AI benchmarking tour'

Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, Samsung Life, Samsung Securities

Chairman orders: "Identify what we can learn from AI"

Executives and working-level staff mobilized overseas

Lee Jae-yong, chairman of Samsung Electronics, is said to have convened the CEOs of Samsung Group’s financial affiliates and called for business innovation driven by artificial intelligence (AI).

According to a Hankyung.com report on the 25th, Lee met last month with the heads of four Samsung financial affiliates—Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, Samsung Life Insurance, Samsung Securities and Samsung Card. He is known to have reviewed management of the financial units and discussed growth strategies at the meeting.

In particular, Lee cited a case of AI-led insurance service innovation at Ping An Insurance (平安) that impressed him during his trip to China earlier this year, asking, "Why can’t we do it?" Lee previously joined an economic delegation during President Lee Jae-myung’s state visit to China on the 4th of last month.

China’s Ping An Insurance is the world’s largest insurer. It established its own AI research institute in 2014 and moved early with an aggressive digital transformation, including rolling out profit models through active cooperation with local big tech companies.

Lee is said to have personally seen Ping An’s AI-designed process for handling auto accidents. Ping An has a system that uses closed-circuit (CC)TV footage after an accident to verify the scene and apportion fault, producing a repair estimate within three minutes.

According to the company, the accuracy of AI estimates for auto accidents is about 92%. Compared with South Korea, where drivers typically have to pull over and wait for police and insurance staff, the claims-handling process is significantly simplified. The approach is also viewed as improving efficiency by reducing traffic congestion and dramatically speeding up insurance estimates and repairs.

At the meeting with the financial-unit CEOs, Lee instructed them to "identify what can be done to improve business models using AI." Samsung Group’s Corporate Strategy Office is said to have subsequently told each financial affiliate to select, on its own, the AI and digital-transformation cases it needs and to move immediately to on-site checks.

In response, the financial affiliates are moving faster to restructure their AI-driven businesses, rushing to finalize benchmarking trips to China, the United States and elsewhere.

Samsung Securities, centered on its wealth management (WM) division, has already sent executives and relevant staff to New York in the United States as of the previous day. They plan to visit JPMorgan, Citi and BNY Mellon, among others, to directly examine how financial institutions are integrating AI and stablecoins into their operations.

Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance is confirmed to have visited China earlier this month to review local insurers’ AI-based accident-handling systems. Samsung Life Insurance is also set to travel next month to visit financial firms in China.

Shin Min-kyung, Hankyung.com reporter radio@hankyung.com