Anthropic has announced the appointment of KiYoung Choi as Representative Director of Korea, a move that precedes the upcoming opening of the company's new office in Seoul. According to Anthropic's Economic Index, South Korea represents one of the most active markets globally for Claude.ai, with usage rates exceeding 3.5 times what would be expected based on population size. Local adoption heavily features technical and creative work, with innovative startups and major enterprises already utilizing the platform. For instance, Law&Company employs Claude for an AI legal assistant, while SK Telecom utilizes Claude to build a custom customer service model. Choi joins Anthropic from Snowflake, where he served as General Manager for Korea. He brings more than thirty years of experience leading technology businesses across the Asia-Pacific region, including previous country leadership roles at Google Cloud, Adobe, Autodesk, and Microsoft. Chris Ciauri, Managing Director of International at Anthropic, noted that Choi's deep understanding of the local technology landscape will help build teams and partnerships to support Korean organizations. The newly established Korea team will concentrate on forming enterprise and startup partnerships, engaging with research institutions and government bodies, and supporting local developers. In addition to the Seoul expansion, Anthropic recently opened an office in Singapore and partnered with the Singaporean government on safe AI adoption, while also engaging organizations like METR to evaluate frontier AI system safety.
Anthropic appoints KiYoung Choi as Representative Director of Korea ahead of Seoul office opening
Anthropic has appointed KiYoung Choi as Representative Director of Korea ahead of the opening of its new Seoul office. Choi brings over three decades of technology industry experience from companies including Snowflake and Google Cloud. The expansion supports strong local momentum, as Koreans use Claude at over 3.5 times the expected rate for the population size.
Why it matters
The expansion highlights the rapid enterprise adoption and high engagement of AI models in sophisticated international markets like South Korea. Establishing a local presence allows companies like Anthropic to forge deeper ties with regional enterprises, startups, and government institutions.