Woori Financial's 2025 AX Drive: Lim Jong-ryong Champions Groupwide AI Transformation

Woori Financial Group Accelerates AX/AI Transformation Under Chairman Lim Jong-ryong

At the Group Management Strategy Workshop for the second half of 2025, Woori Financial Group set a clear direction: a company-wide AI transition led by Chairman Lim Jong-ryong. The mandate is direct-transform internal work and raise customer service quality with AI, with active involvement from working-level teams under firm executive leadership.

Chairman Lim stated, "Let's accelerate the implementation of company-wide AX (AI Great Transformation) to show our real potential as a leading financial group." He added, "AI is now not just a tool, but a partner who works together. People who understand and use AI properly are key talents in the future."

Operating Model: Central Strategy, Local Execution

To move fast with governance, the holding company expanded its Financial Technology Department into an AI Strategy Center. This hub sets group-wide AI strategy, supports affiliates, and leads AI R&D. Each affiliate-banking, cards, securities, insurance-now has a dedicated AI unit with expanded headcount.

The execution model is simple: select priority use cases per affiliate, then scale what works across the group. This balances standardization where it matters with flexibility where it counts.

Platforms and Use Cases Rolling Out

• Woori Bank: Launched a Gen-AI platform on a hybrid cloud to achieve both security and scalability. Starting Q4, it will roll out AI subscription counselors and "W-Sketch" for creative image generation.
• Asset Management (WON Portfolio): Applying proprietary Generative AI to deliver professional-grade advisory support.
• One Banking: Offering "Hamatamyeon," an AI-based voice-phishing prevention education service to protect customers.
• Woori Card: Prioritizing design as an AI use case. Plans include Gen-AI image/video content creation and higher rates of unmanned counseling with LLM-driven quality control, targeted for next year.
• Woori Investment & Securities: Launching AI services to improve client experience in H2. Features include AI translation of overseas investment social content, AI-summarized news and disclosures, and automated daily reports for domestic and global equities.

Building AI as a "New Language" Across the Group

The group intends to embed AI into daily work-treating it as a shared language for all employees. A group-level AI ecosystem will allow affiliates to share models, tools, and data assets, reducing duplication and speeding up deployment.

Chairman Lim also joined practice training on using ChatGPT with affiliate executives, signaling that adoption starts at the top. The expectation is clear: leaders who work fluently with AI will drive performance.

What Executives Should Focus On Now

• Govern for speed and safety: Central AI strategy with affiliate delivery pods. Define model approval, monitoring, and incident response upfront.
• Prioritize by economic value: Rank use cases by ROI, risk profile, and data readiness. Start with customer service, fraud/financial crime, content automation, and research summarization.
• Architect for hybrid cloud: Keep sensitive data and high-risk workloads controlled while enabling scalable experimentation and deployment.
• Adopt proven AI risk practices: Use recognized frameworks to guide responsible AI and model governance. See the NIST AI Risk Management Framework for practical guidance here.
• Upskill the workforce: Make prompt fluency and AI-assisted workflows a baseline skill for every role, especially frontline and operations teams.
• Measure adoption, not just pilots: Track daily active AI users, time saved per process, CSAT lift, and error-rate reduction.

Why This Approach Works

Woori's structure aligns strategy and delivery, which is the bottleneck for most financial institutions. Hybrid cloud enables control without stalling innovation. A shared AI ecosystem compounds learning and lowers cost per use case over time.

The agenda is execution-first: ship useful assistants, automate high-volume tasks, and protect customers. That is how AI moves from experiment to balance-sheet impact.

Next Steps for Leaders

• Codify a one-page AI operating model-roles, decision rights, funding, and risk gates.
• Stand up an enterprise prompt library and pattern catalog for reuse across teams.
• Launch a 90-day adoption sprint with 3-5 high-visibility use cases per affiliate.
• Institutionalize training for executives and managers to model AI-first behavior. For structured learning on applied AI and ChatGPT, explore this certification.