Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong, left, poses with Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the latter's home in California, June 11, as they exchanged ideas on how to deepen their partnership in AI. Courtesy of Samsung Electronics

Owners of Samsung, SK, LG and other Korean conglomerates are taking part in corporate promotional activities by posting photos of themselves with U.S. tech company leaders, a move seen as positive at a time when AI is becoming essential to business, industry officials and analysts said Thursday.

As AI technology emerges as a crucial element in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Korean companies are strengthening collaborating with leading U.S. tech companies to enhance their AI-related businesses, and this selfie promotion strategy of Korean business leaders becomes increasingly important in these efforts, the analysts said.

"All business begins with meeting people. Even if these Korean companies don't immediately achieve their desired goals, by publicizing their meetings with U.S. tech firm leaders, they can demonstrate the direction of innovation they're pursuing to stakeholders. This type of promotion is highly positive for corporate value," said Kim Dae-jong, a professor of business administration at Sejong University.

The industry view is that Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong is considered the most adept at employing this PR selfie strategy. Since his time as vice chairman, he had private meetings with influential business figures around the world, showcasing to stakeholders the future direction Samsung is taking.

One of the executive chairman's latest moves was a series of meetings with tech leaders in the U.S. last month, including Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon.

On June 11, Lee met with Zuckerberg at the Meta founder's California home, discussing cooperation in ICT fields such as AI and virtual reality. The two had previously met in February when Zuckerberg visited Korea at the executive chairman's invitation, meeting at Seungjiwon, Samsung Group's VIP guest house in Seoul.

Additionally, during his U.S. business trip, the Samsung leader met with the Amazon CEO in Seattle to share market outlooks on current focus areas like generative AI and cloud computing, and discuss further cooperation. With the Qualcomm CEO, he explored ways to expand cooperation in emerging future semiconductor markets, including AI chips and network chips.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, left, poses with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the latter's headquarters in San Francisco. On June 27, SK said Chey recently met with Altman as well as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in Redmond to discuss ways to collaborate on AI services during his business trip to the United States. Captured from Chey's Instagram

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won has also been meeting with U.S. tech leaders to explore future business opportunities. While Samsung and LG publicly disclose these meetings at the company level, the SK leader adopted a strategy of personally sharing selfies with tech leaders on his Instagram account.

Chey met with Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang in the U.S. in April, and on July 1, he posted photos on Instagram of meetings with the Amazon CEO and Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. Earlier, on June 27, he uploaded photos with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

The series of meetings with these tech leaders can be interpreted as SK beefing up cooperation with the tech firms for its future growth. SK hynix, the group's semiconductor unit, has been performing well, capturing over half the market share for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), an AI memory chip used in AI services.

LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, right, poses with U.S. AI chip company Tenstorrent CEO Jim Keller in Silicon Valley, Calif., during his visit to the United States last month. Courtesy of LG Corp.

LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo also visited Tennessee and Silicon Valley for four days from June 17. He met with Jim Keller, CEO of Tenstorrent, which is developing AI chips, to discuss future prospects of the industry.

The LG leader also visited the headquarters of Figure AI, which is developing humanoid robots, to hear from CEO Brett Adcock about the current state of the robot market and technology trends.

Lee Hae-jin, left, founder and global investment officer of Naver, poses with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, center, and Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon at the U.S. company's headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., June 25. Naver said they discussed sovereign AI, which refers to each nation's capability to autonomously develop AI technology. Captured from Naver's Instagram account

Lee Hae-jin, founder of Korea's largest internet company Naver, also met with the Nvidia CEO to exchange thoughts on AI services. Lee, who currently serves as global investment officer of Naver, met with Huang along with Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon at Nvidia's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, last month.

Naver said they discussed sovereign AI, which refers to each nation's capability to develop AI technology autonomously. Naver has been providing AI services through its hyperscale AI platform HyperCLOVA X.

Professor Kim said the reason Korean business leaders are meeting so intensively with U.S. big tech leaders is because they recognize the importance of AI and know that their companies' existence could be threatened if they don't excel in this emerging technology.

"AI is the biggest topic for all companies. Companies that adopt AI will survive, while those don't may struggle to exist. Korean companies need to show they're following the trends by incorporating AI into their products and applications. In that sense, the selfie PR of the conglomerate leaders is necessary to inform investors and increase the company's value," Kim said.