At the '2025 Korea Small Business Conference,' a festival for small business owners, Next Payments, a company specializing in AI smart store solutions, garnered attention with its solutions leading the era of AI transformation (AX) beyond digital transformation (DX).


The '2025 Korea Small Business Conference,' hosted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and organized by the Small Enterprise and Market Service and the Korea Federation of Micro Enterprise, is held from October 31 to November 1 at KINTEX in Ilsan. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the event is the largest of its kind, attended by over 2,500 small business owners nationwide. Under the slogan 'Small Businesses Opening Today, Korea Connecting Tomorrow,' it serves as a platform to elevate the social and economic status of small business owners in various fields such as AI, robotics, food, and beauty, and to explore new growth drivers.

Various programs, including the opening ceremony, skills competition, exhibition, forum, and seminars, were conducted. Particularly, the 'Smart Technology Experience Hall,' designed to showcase the achievements of companies participating in the 'Smart Store Technology Distribution Project,' attracted the attention of visitors. The experience hall displayed various solutions such as unmanned kiosks, delivery/serving robots, electronic billboards, QR orders, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

The Smart Store Technology Distribution Project aims to support the digital transformation and competitiveness enhancement of small businesses by introducing smart technologies such as kiosks and serving robots into their businesses annually. This year, the project was conducted on a scale of KRW 37.5 billion, with plans to distribute smart stores to 57,000 stores by 2027. The government supported the introduction of technology tailored to different industries of small businesses in various forms, such as rental and SaaS.

Next Payments Unveils Ontology-Based AI Agent


Next Payments also participated in this Smart Technology Experience Hall. Having accumulated know-how in smart stores through more than six years of digital transformation projects for small businesses, Next Payments showcased an upgraded solution. Ji Kwang-cheol, CEO of Next Payments, stated, "We have recognized that small business owners feel vague fears and burdens about the technology gap due to the rapid development of AI technology," and added, "Next Payments aims to supply appropriate AI technology to help small business owners safely navigate the wave of the AI transformation era and establish itself as their store operation partner."

The core solution unveiled by Next Payments is the 'Ontology-Based AI Agent,' which comprehensively supports store operations. Ontology refers to a knowledge system or method that connects concepts or data in a specific field and defines and expresses their relationships. It goes beyond simply collecting data, helping AI accurately understand the meaning and context of data and reason like a human as the data becomes vast and complex.


The ontology-based AI agent from Next Payments is an AI system that provides customized management consulting and automation solutions to small business owners using a knowledge structure. The core is to accumulate store information in a relational database. Information such as sales, entry numbers, visitor numbers, customer age, gender, inflow/stay collected from various devices like POS, kiosks, and sensor cameras is stored in a vector DB and combined with external data such as weather.

The AI agent contextually understands the accumulated data to support the decision-making of small business owners. For example, they can ask the AI, "What menu should be added since the weather has turned cold?" or "Has there been an environmental change since sales have changed compared to last week?" to formulate operational strategies. CEO Ji explained, "While past AI solutions were limited to visualizing data, the ontology-based AI agent has evolved to the level of identifying causal relationships between data and actively advising on store operation strategies." He also stated, "Small business owners now gain a smart partner, allowing them to focus solely on improving the quality of products and services by freeing them from complex store operations."

A function to visualize data relationships in the form of a knowledge graph is also under development. Similar to a mind map, it connects points to allow a quick view of how store data is interconnected. CEO Ji added, "The AI agent has been introduced since May this year and has been distributed to about 500 stores, with its performance being increasingly enhanced as data accumulates, and it is expected to be fully utilized from the fourth quarter onward."

Advancement of Hardware Technology…AI Media Target Advertising Display Unveiled


At the event, a large number of hardware equipped with Next Payments' AI agent were introduced. Next Payments is accelerating the innovation of autonomous operation in offline stores through technological cooperation for Samsung Electronics' SmartThings AIoT integration. The current 'AI Kiosk' is being developed and supplied with Next Payments' own technology, and the 'Barrier-Free Kiosk,' which will be officially introduced next year, is set to receive additional barrier-free certification through collaboration with leading domestic kiosk manufacturers. It meets the production standards (braille keypad, appropriate height) required by the Disability Discrimination Act. Notably, it is equipped with an elevation function that automatically adjusts the screen height when the user presses a button.


The AI store 'Nano,' unveiled last April, is a smart store that interacts with customers. The AI agent embedded in Nano detects customer emotions and responds, recommending personalized menus that the customer desires. Nano is expected to be released in an assembly-type 2.0 version by the end of this year, enhancing installation flexibility and making it easier to install in small spaces.


The 'AI Media Target Display' was also unveiled at the event. Developed for convenience stores, this product combines Sony camera sensors to even read customer gaze. It can verify which products attract prolonged attention and which positions are popular, enabling advertising targeting. For instance, it can automatically or manually play specific advertisements targeting female customers in their 20s visiting on rainy days. A Sony representative at the event commented, "There are not many retail tech companies in Korea with this level of capability." CEO Ji added, "Next Payments will focus its core capabilities on solution development while also expanding partnerships with specialized hardware manufacturing companies."

Targeting KRW 10 billion in Sales This Year…Pursuing Technology That Truly Helps Small Businesses

Next Payments has set growth targets alongside the full-scale distribution of its ontology-based AI agent. Having recorded approximately KRW 7 billion in sales last year, Next Payments aims to achieve KRW 10 billion in sales this year. This represents a growth rate approaching 40%, with the distribution of ontology-based solutions starting in the fourth quarter expected to be a key driver of corporate growth.

Next Payments' business strategy aligns with the trend of building a domestic AI ecosystem. By collaborating with Naver Cloud, it participates in the 'Sovereign AI' system to strengthen AI sovereignty and nationwide AIization promoted by the government. It plans to accelerate its leap into the global market using its success in the domestic market as a stepping stone.


Finally, CEO Ji revealed Next Payments' strategy focused on practicality. He stated, "The biggest barrier small business owners feel in the AX era is the complexity and cost of technology. No matter how advanced AI technology is, if it is expensive or difficult to use, it is easily shunned in the field," and emphasized, "Next Payments provides advanced AI technology in the form of appropriate technology that matches the payment capabilities of small business owners. Making small business owners trust and utilize AI is the true digital transformation and AI transformation." As part of this, Next Payments plans to offer education for small business owners and their employees.

CEO Ji concluded, "The ultimate vision of Next Payments is to secure stores operated based on data through the ontology-based AI agent and to create the 'Next Index' based on vast relational data. This is expected to play an important role in elevating the small business ecosystem to the next level in line with the AI transformation era by presenting a new standard indicator for operating the small business retail market."

IT Donga Reporter Kim Ye-ji (yj@itdonga.com)

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