Hyundai Motor Group Accelerates AI Transformation, Deploys AI Across R&D, Manufacturing and Service
At its Seoul showcase, Hyundai Motor Group revealed how AI tools and 30,000-plus active users are reshaping its R&D, manufacturing and service operations.
- 30,000+
- ~90%
- ~86%
- 35 min to ~5 min per review
What Happened
Hyundai Motor Group held the AX Achievement Showcase 'Beyond AI, Transforming the Way We Work' at its Seoul headquarters on August 12, 2026, detailing its journey from digital transformation since 2019 to enterprise-wide AI transformation. The Group says AI is already embedded as a competitive advantage and plans to expand into Physical AI, combining AI with the physical world across vehicles, robotics, manufacturing and service operations.
Executive Chair Euisun Chung declares the Group will become 'a company more IT-like than IT companies themselves,' accelerating digital transformation.
Group deploys JIRA, Dooray, Confluence and Microsoft 365 globally to standardize collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
H Chat Pro, its proprietary generative AI platform, becomes available to all general employees.
H Chat Pro surpasses 30,000 active users, approximately 80% of Hyundai Motor and Kia's general employees.
Group holds the AX Achievement Showcase in Seoul.
“AI is undoubtedly an important technology, but ultimately it is a tool that companies must utilize. What matters is not the technology itself, but how quickly an organization can understand new technologies, including AI, apply them to its work and business, and internalize them as a source of competitive advantage. Building on our ongoing digital transformation efforts, Hyundai Motor Group is exp”
To build the foundation, the Group deployed JIRA, Dooray and Confluence in 2022 to standardize project management, decision-tracking and knowledge-sharing, giving employees greater visibility into Group-wide operations and accumulating work processes as organizational assets. It simultaneously implemented Microsoft 365 across global operations, including R&D organizations working on autonomous driving and hydrogen that previously could not use external collaboration tools due to security regulations; relevant government authorities swiftly established guidelines for SaaS usage, enabling safe adoption. The Group also established the Global One Data Pipeline, connecting data across research, production, quality and sales functions. On this infrastructure, the Group launched H Chat Pro, a proprietary generative AI platform that securely accesses external models including ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, available to all general employees since 2025. As of July 2026, it has more than 30,000 active users, approximately 80 percent of Hyundai Motor and Kia's general employee population, and the Group offers AX education programs and internal communities to encourage AI adoption.
In R&D, the Crash Safety AI Assistant connects crash test results, test images and engineering analysis data, letting engineers search and review structured case knowledge and cutting the time spent identifying relevant cases and reviewing materials by approximately 90 percent. In manufacturing, the AI Automation Recognition Service uses vision AI and cameras to read vehicle identification numbers (VINs) and verify vehicles in real time across approximately 70 manufacturing processes at Hyundai Motor and Kia plants in Korea, the United States, Europe, India and the Asia-Pacific, generating annual cost savings of approximately KRW 5.24 billion (approximately $3.9 million). Transfer Cart Sequencing Optimization Technology uses reinforcement learning-based AI to calculate optimal routes for parts-transfer carts, reducing unnecessary production downtime by approximately 86 percent. The Group also established E-FOREST: POLARIS, a manufacturing-specialized AI platform that lets production engineers build, test and deploy AI agents in actual production environments.
In service operations, Hyundai Motor, Kia and Genesis have deployed AI-powered support solutions. At overseas service centers, a large language model-based Maintenance Support AI Service helps technicians quickly identify vehicle issues and recommended countermeasures, reducing maintenance response time by approximately 42 percent. The Customer Review Response Automation Solution ingests mobile app reviews from Hyundai, Kia and Genesis customers globally; employees review AI-generated outputs before responding, and the Group plans to automate the entire process starting September 2026. Hyundai Motor Group says AI transformation is also a cultural shift, and it plans to expand into Physical AI, combining AI with the physical world across vehicles, robotics, manufacturing and service operations.
- 35 minutes per review
- Approximately 5 minutes per review
Why this matters
Hyundai's AI transformation shows how automakers must become software- and data-driven companies to stay competitive. The new tools are already changing daily work for engineers, plant workers and service technicians, cutting time spent on crash-safety research, production downtime and customer review processing. For customers, AI-assisted diagnostics and faster review responses could mean quicker, more consistent service experiences.
Terms in This Story
- Generative AI
- AI that creates new content—such as text, images, or code—based on patterns learned from existing data.
- Reinforcement learning
- A machine-learning method where an AI model learns optimal actions through trial and error, guided by rewards.
- Large language model (LLM)
- An AI model trained on enormous amounts of text to understand and generate human-like language.
- Physical AI
- AI that operates in and interacts with the physical world, such as in vehicles, robots, and manufacturing equipment.
Summarised from the linked release; details can be imperfect — always verify against the original source.