“At last, ixi-O is going global!”

This was the post uploaded by LG Uplus CEO Hong Beom-sik on the company’s internal social media on the morning of the 11th. He was sharing with employees the news that LG Uplus had agreed with Maxis, Malaysia’s largest telecom operator with 10 million subscribers, on a local commercial launch of ixi-O. ixi-O is an AI call service that goes beyond simple voice-to-text conversion to understand users’ intent, emotions and conversation context and provide customized responses.

On the 12th, a day later, as the company officially announced the export of ixi-O, Hong stated, “This is the company’s first-ever software export and the first case of selling an AI service that we directly planned and developed to an overseas market,” adding that it is “the first step toward becoming an AI software company.”

Previously, at Mobile World Congress 2026 (MWC26) held in Barcelona, Spain in March, Hong had declared, “We will leap forward as a global AI software company leading the solutionization of telecommunications and AX (AI transformation) technologies,” and pledged to achieve exports to one or two countries within the year with ixi-O at the forefront. That pledge has been realized in just over two months. Industry analysis notes that the interests of the two companies aligned, as Malaysia’s Maxis has recently declared a transition into an “AI- and cloud-centric digital solutions company” and has been accelerating the adoption of advanced technologies.

The Malaysian version of ixi-O will include the same functions available in Korea, such as call recording and summarization, real-time voice phishing detection, and an AI agent that answers spam calls on behalf of users. On top of this, it will add localized features including support for recording calls made via WhatsApp, a widely used messenger in the country, and an on-device AI engine that recognizes Malay, English, as well as the mixed English known as “Manglish.” The two companies are also discussing ways to expand their cooperation into areas such as AI-based smart home services and business-to-business (B2B) solutions, using this launch as a springboard. Hong said, “We are localizing ixi-O to fit Malaysia’s telecom environment and refining it into a service that customers can actually use,” adding, “Based on the AI experience we have accumulated in Korea, we will focus on expanding into overseas markets with AI software delivered as a service.”

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