SK Telecom (SKT) revealed it will invest in AI assistant developer Persona AI, with the pair set to collaborate on products designed to improve automated customer service facilities for enterprises.

In a translated statement, the operator promoted South Korea-based Persona AI as the country’s leading developer of AI tools used in automated call centres.

Persona AI uses its own natural language processing technology to build AI assistants featuring voice recognition, voice engine and sentence analysis, offering 24-hour customer service through chatbots and callbots.

SKT framed the market for AI-powered customer centres as competitive, and it expects its strategic investment in Persona AI to help it “secure AI leadership” in this area.

Financial details of the investment were not disclosed, though SKT noted with the buy it becomes the AI specialist’s third largest shareholder.

The operator noted it planned to combine its speech recognition technology with Persona AI’s natural language processing tools to build various products aimed at businesses.

Its investment is the operator’s latest in the AI segment. Earlier this month it pumped $100 million into US-based AI developer Anthropic.