Interior ministry builds AI services to help small businesses and rural newcomers

The interior ministry said Tuesday it is building two artificial intelligence services with Gangwon Province and North Gyeongsang Province to help small business owners run their shops and help new residents settle into their communities, with both scheduled to launch late this year.

The services are part of the government's Public Sector AI Service Support Project, the ministry said, and are meant to spare residents the burden of hunting down support information themselves by directing them to the best information and help for their individual circumstances.

Gangwon's AI Small Business Safe Management Support Service pulls together labor contract support, labor and legal counseling, and guidance on tailored policy support. It will automatically generate standard labor contracts matched to a business's industry and employment type, check that required items are included, and let owners deliver the finished contract to workers as a file. Routine labor and legal questions are handled by an AI chatbot, while matters needing professional judgment are passed to labor attorneys and other experts. The service also analyzes a small business owner's qualifications and business characteristics to recommend suitable policy support and link them to applications.

North Gyeongsang Province is building the Resident Care AI Service to Overcome the Regional Extinction Crisis, which analyzes a resident's age, household type, stage of settlement and economic activity plans to identify the administrative services they need. It proposes settlement plans tailored to individuals, from the preparation stage through life after settling, and offers integrated guidance on housing, care and welfare services for the elderly. It also connects residents to the relevant institutions so they can follow through on the help they find.

"Even when a support program exists, if people do not know about it, its benefits struggle to reach their daily lives," said Hwang Kyu-cheol, head of the ministry's AI Government Office. "We will easily connect small business owners with the support they need to run their shops and residents with the information they need to settle in stably."

The ministry plans to standardize the functions and application procedures of services whose results are verified so other institutions can adopt them, reducing the burden of building similar services from scratch in each region.