SEMAS strengthens AI project review system to expand support for small businesses

The Small Enterprise and Market Service is strengthening its project review and verification framework to expand AI-powered support services for small business owners.

SEMAS said Wednesday it held a forum at its headquarters Tuesday to review the progress of its AI service initiatives and map out future directions. SEMAS President In Tae-yeon and AI practitioners attended the event, examining the agency's ongoing AI projects and discussing ways to deliver AI services that small business owners can tangibly experience on the ground.

SEMAS has also been working to build internal AI capabilities. From July 27 to Aug. 13, the agency ran a six-session, eight-and-a-half-hour initiative called the "AI Compass" project, conducting step-by-step learning and discussion on topics including AI discourse and infrastructure, how AI works, services, adoption strategies, and policy and the future. The sessions also covered what public institutions need to know when introducing and operating AI — from AI decision-making and learning principles to data and model selection and result verification and management.

Building on that foundation, SEMAS developed an "AI Project Checklist" to systematically review AI projects within the agency. The checklist comprises five items: purpose suitability, management adequacy, procedural completeness, AI model adequacy and AI model performance evaluation. At Tuesday's forum, participants used the checklist to examine the current state and key issues of ongoing AI support projects for small businesses, and also discussed challenges faced by practitioners and potential improvements.

SEMAS is also running a program to help small businesses adopt AI directly. Working with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the agency this year is supporting small business owners in developing AI-based products and services through the "Innovative Small Business AI Utilization Support" project. The program pairs small businesses with AI mentor companies to assess their capabilities and draw up AI utilization plans covering areas such as business advancement and marketing, before connecting them to real-world business applications — including building in-house AI systems, developing commercial prototypes and executing targeted marketing.

Going forward, SEMAS plans to operate its AI services based on the "Human-in-the-Loop" approach, in which humans provide final verification and supplementation of AI-generated results, and the "Zero Trust" principle, which emphasizes continuous verification.

"Adopting AI is far less about using new technology than it is about having a robust system in place to verify and manage the problems you are trying to solve and the outcomes you get," SEMAS President In said. "We will keep communicating with our staff to address difficulties on the ground, and support the agency in becoming an organization where small business owners can feel real, tangible change through AI."