SK Telecom published its first AI Governance Report on October 26, laying out a framework that assigns employee ID numbers to in-house AI agents and puts a named human supervisor in charge of each one. Agents with greater impact or higher autonomy must be overseen by a team leader or executive, and SK Telecom says agents judged less necessary can be suspended or retired.
The identifiers cover in-house agents, including ones employees build or use for their own work. SK Telecom tracks each agent's role, supervisor, operating status and performance, and is reviewing token usage and work records. The more autonomous an agent, the stricter the human review and approval it faces, and its operation can be halted if an anomaly occurs.
SK Telecom also plans to recognize agents issued employee ID numbers as an official new workforce. The company said it is reviewing ways to share agents' performance with employees and, over the longer term, will consider reflecting it in organizational KPIs. Agents are evaluated on task completion and performance to decide whether they are kept, improved or retired.
Key facts
- 01SK Telecom published its first AI Governance Report on October 26, 2026.
- 02In-house AI agents get employee ID numbers and a named human supervisor; high-autonomy agents answer to a team leader or executive.
- 03Agents are evaluated on task completion and performance and can be kept, improved, suspended or retired.
- 04The rollout runs in three stages from 2026 to 2028, ending in full lifecycle management including decommissioning.
- 05ISO/IEC 42001 certification, first earned in 2024, was expanded in October 2026 to cover in-house agent management.
The report sets a three-stage timeline. In 2026, SK Telecom is building the foundation, including standards for preliminary reviews of AI services and agents and for registering them and assigning owners. In 2027, it plans to strengthen differentiated permissions and controls based on autonomy and impact on work, along with human review and intervention systems. By 2028, it aims to run a management system covering agents' operation, evaluation, maintenance, enhancement and decommissioning.
Cha Ho-beom, SK Telecom's chief privacy officer, leads both personal information protection and AI governance at the company. He listed identification, supervisor designation, access control, regular evaluation, and suspension or retirement as parts of the planned management framework for in-house agents.
“AI governance is becoming even more important in the era of AI agents.”— Cha Ho-beom, Chief Privacy Officer, SK Telecom
On privacy, SK Telecom said it applies a Privacy by Design principle, building personal information protection into service planning and development. External models or libraries used in AI services that handle personal data are reviewed for licensing and security vulnerabilities, and the company plans to upgrade inspection and monitoring across the full service lifecycle, including after launch.
The report also covers certification. SK Telecom first received ISO/IEC 42001 certification for its customer-facing AI management system in 2024, and in October 2026 it expanded the scope to include its upgraded AI management system and in-house AI agent management.
The governance report builds on AX Innovation 2.0, which SK Telecom announced in June. Under that program, AI agents receive employee ID numbers and are managed through HR processes from onboarding to offboarding, a step beyond the earlier AX Innovation 1.0, which used AI as a work aid.
“We recognize the responsibility that comes with AI as much as the innovation it will bring.”— Chung Jae-hun, CEO, SK Telecom
SK Telecom said the report was produced to strengthen what it calls AI trust management. Chief executive Chung Jae-hun tied the effort to customer trust in both the performance of AI and the company's accountability for it.
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