KT Hitel Co., TV commerce affiliate of South Korean telecom giant KT Corp., Wednesday unveiled a voice-activated home shopping service that allows its users make purchases by simply talking to TVs connected to an artificial intelligence (AI)-based set-top box, while watching TV.

The new voice-activated shopping service is linked to Giga Genie set-top box that KT launched in January, KT Hitel said. Giga Genie is an AI-based Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform that performs tasks such as information searching on simple voice commands.

With the new service, a KT Hitel’s home shopping channel viewer will need to simply talk to the TV connected to the Giga Genie set-top box to order whatever appears on the home shopping channel. The user will not have to make a call or maneuver a TV remote control to make a purchase any more, the company explained. Once the smart system receives the voice command, it sends a text message containing an internet hyperlink for confirming the order to the service user’s smartphone.

KT Hitel plans to launch the voice-activated home shopping service by the end of this year, and introduce an upgraded version of the service that will enable users to shop and complete payment on one simple voice command using credit card information in the future.

By Park Eun-jin

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