[Edaily Starin Gim Ga Yeong Reporter] "As we adopt artificial intelligence (AI), we are taking a strategic approach with the following objectives: △establishing production processes, △expanding the advertising and distribution ecosystem, △enhancing the user experience—including that of viewers—and △building a business model."

Lee Sang-jin, Head of the SBS AI Partnership Team, outlined SBS’s direction for AI adoption as described above. In a recent interview with Edaily, Lee noted, “Since SBS is a media content company, the most critical points are how AI can add value to our content and how it can expand the value of our content,” adding, “We are exploring ways for AI to support what media companies are inherently good at.”

Improving Production Processes Through AI Adoption

SBS is fundamentally improving its media production processes by introducing AI across various fields. In the recently concluded hit SBS drama *Director Kim*, the network set a new paradigm by using AI to produce an entire scene—approximately three minutes long—for the first time in a Korean drama. This scene in *Director Kim* not only reduced costs and production time but also enhanced safety on set by replacing high-risk, technically challenging scenes.
Team Leader Lee stated, “‘Director Kim’ is a case that demonstrated new possibilities by using AI to produce a sequence that tells a single story,” adding, “The characters and objects in that scene had to maintain consistency from start to finish without any awkwardness, and ‘Director Kim’ made that possible.” He went on to explain, “This resulted in cost savings of over 40% compared to using human actors for live-action filming.”
The production of this scene took four months. Team Leader Lee noted, “High-quality footage doesn’t emerge immediately from a prompt; we have to invest a significant amount of time to refine the scene’s quality,” adding, “As AI model performance continues to improve, we expect that time to be reduced in the future.”
SBS plans to continue utilizing AI for high-risk scenes in future productions to protect cast members, prevent accidents, and strive to bring a wide variety of scenes to life.
SBS has mainstreamed AI technology through “DataLabs” and “MediaLabs.” DataLabs is a data-driven AI analysis platform used during the content planning and scheduling stages; it offers features such as precise verification of audio tracks, AI-powered automatic song selection tailored to a program’s mood, and automatic identification of sponsorship disclosures within videos. Media Labs supports various functions that enhance efficiency on set, such as automatic person recognition, automatic video information extraction, and automatic recommendations of highlights for clips. By streamlining routine tasks, it has created an environment where production teams can focus on more creative work.
Team Leader Lee explained, “Currently, the content production sector is showing high satisfaction with ‘Labs,’” adding, “Thanks to ‘Labs,’ tasks that used to take two to three days can now be completed in just one minute.”

Building a New Business Model

SBS views AI technology not merely as a means of streamlining processes by replacing manual labor, but also as a future business model that expands the scope of content distribution structures and the advertising ecosystem.
Team Leader Lee explained, “The proportion of pre-produced content in the market has been increasing recently. Now, it’s possible to insert product placement (PPL) ads using AI after the fact—ads that couldn’t be included during filming.” He added, “In the past, such situations meant either forgoing the ad or reshooting the scene, but the adoption of AI has significantly improved efficiency.”
The use of AI in advertising goes beyond PPL. Team Leader Lee noted, “We are also developing technology where AI recommends product categories that suit each piece of content and helps identify storylines,” adding, “This is about leveraging AI technology to make advertising sales more efficient.” The company also plans to develop AI that recommends product categories tailored to the scenes immediately before and after mid-roll ads to enhance viewer immersion and advertising effectiveness.
This approach allows viewers to maintain their engagement with the broadcast while reducing ad fatigue, and it enables advertisers to boost the effectiveness of their ads and recognize the value of broadcast advertising. This could serve as a turning point to revive the stagnant advertising market.
The company also plans to further expand its entry into overseas markets using AI. Team Leader Lee stated, “When exporting Korean content overseas, there are barriers such as dubbing and subtitling. Now, thanks to AI, we can add dubbing and subtitles in various languages around the world for export,” adding, “Using AI for these tasks can reduce costs to about one-thirtieth of the traditional method.”
Team Leader Lee predicted, “Ultimately, a broadcaster’s survival in the AI era will hinge on how effectively it integrates its intellectual property (IP)—accumulated over decades—with AI,” adding, “The key will be how well we internalize this.”
He particularly emphasized that government support is necessary for the growth of AI in the media content industry. Team Leader Lee said, “We need AI models specialized for media. I hope the government will pay as much attention to AI in the cultural and media sectors as it does to physical AI.” He continued, “Since the media industry lacks both GPU infrastructure and the capital to invest in AI technology, strategic support is needed to enable the industry to advance through AI,” noting, “Production support should be provided to enable the creation of AI-enhanced content, and an environment must be established where the AI data held by broadcasters—which can be monetized—can be freely traded.”
SBS has been selected as the lead coordinating institution for the “Development of Media Production Technology Based on Interactive Multimodal AI,” a large-scale national R&D project promoted by the Korea Communications Commission. With a total R&D budget of approximately 12.7 billion won (including about 10.7 billion won in government funding and about 2.0 billion won in institutional contributions), the project will run for two years and nine months, from April 2026 to December 2028.
Team Leader Lee stated, “Simply put, we are developing technology that allows AI to turn a director’s verbal instructions into video content. Currently, AI struggles to produce content that aligns with the creative intent of Korean content directors, and this project aims to solve that problem.” He added, “Our goal is to effectively train the AI using our expertise and integrate it so that it can accurately generate the content directors envision and be effectively utilized on production sets.”