Seoul: LG Uplus Corp., a major mobile carrier in South Korea, unveiled its new artificial intelligence (AI) agent ixi-O AI Assistant in partnership with Google, featuring the U.S. tech giant's latest large language model (LLM) and search technologies.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the company said ixi-O AI Assistant was developed based on Gemini 2.5 Flash Live, Google's latest LLM that enables low-latency, bidirectional text and voice interactions with the AI chatbot Gemini. The AI agent also incorporates Grounding with Google Search, which connects the Gemini model to real-time, publicly available web content to provide more accurate and up-to-date answers with citations from verifiable sources.
"We are very proud to be a key partner in the LG Uplus' AI transformation journey and the launch of ixi-O with Gemini Flash Live," Karen Teo, vice president of partnerships for the Asia-Pacific region, said in a press event in Seoul. "It is a great example of how we are working together to bring cutting-edge AI to Korean consumers," she added.
Combining LG Uplus' proprietary AI model with Google's LLM, ixi-O Assistant will be able to summarize telephone conversations and provide scheduling support and conversational advice based on those summaries. The AI assistant can understand the context of conversations in real time during phone calls and provide relevant information when needed. When users say, "Hey, ixio," during a call or press the call button, the AI joins the conversation to search for information and share the results.
LG Uplus said it plans to collect user feedback through beta testing by the end of this year before launching the full AI agent service in the first half of next year. In addition, the company plans to expand its partnership with Google into actionable AI, which aims not only to deliver insights but also to autonomously perform tasks and make decisions in response to new information.
"For ixi-O AI Assistant, a multi-LLM-based AI agent, we need a voice-to-voice language model and cutting-edge search infrastructure, and Google offers industry-leading capabilities in those areas," said Lee Sang-yeop, chief technology officer (CTO) at LG Uplus. LG Uplus also said it plans to introduce AI agent subscription plans later this month bundled with Google One, a comprehensive service that provides expanded cloud storage across Google Drive, Gmail and Google Photos.