[Edaily Reporter Kim Ji-woo] #BGF Retail, operator of the CU convenience store chain, is partnering with Hancom to build an intelligent knowledge search system that integrates company-wide data—a first for a private company in Korea. This move demonstrates the company’s commitment to accelerating its AI transformation (AX).

BGF Retail announced on the 11th that it will launch the knowledge search AI platform “ASK” (AI Shared Knowledge) on its internal groupware this month. ASK integrates vast amounts of data scattered across various sources, such as internal bulletin boards, documents, and attachments.

It is also an AI RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)-based platform that quickly and accurately finds the desired information when employees ask questions using everyday language (natural language). The company explains that by incorporating deep search capabilities, the system identifies the intent behind a question and comprehensively searches content across multiple documents and bulletin boards to provide context-aware answers.

ASK provides a Q&A service by training on not only structured data such as HR policies but also various forms of unstructured documents—including Hangul, PowerPoint, and Excel files—as well as internal posts, all in their original form without additional processing.

Additionally, a key feature is the implementation of a hybrid AI RAG system that integrates MCP (Model Context Protocol), a database (DB) search integration technology, thereby enhancing technical sophistication. This maximizes the convenience of accessing essential information that employees frequently look up on a daily basis, such as organizational charts and job descriptions.

Through this initiative, BGF Retail is taking a leap forward as an AX (AI-driven) enterprise, moving beyond the mere construction of a search system to reorganize company-wide data into a format that AI can read and process. This also lays the groundwork for improving access to company-wide data and expanding the application of AI to other business areas in the future.

Furthermore, the introduction of this AI is expected to significantly reduce the time spent searching for information, thereby improving employee engagement and productivity.

Park Jun-yong, Head of the Digital Innovation Division at BGF Retail, stated, “Building on this AX collaboration, we will continue to work with Hancom to introduce new AI technologies that can be applied in real-world customer settings,” adding, “We will continue to pursue various initiatives to strengthen work productivity and organizational capabilities in step with digital transformation.”