NPS AI-Equipped KIOSKs for Pension Counselling and Real-Time AI Interpreter for Foreigners

Overview

The National Pension Service (NPS) of the Republic of Korea has deployed AI-equipped KIOSKs in its Customer Centres nationwide to provide general pension counselling, institutional promotion, and a real-time AI interpreter service for foreign nationals accessing national pension administration services. This initiative, recognised as ISSA Good Practice gp/257677, represents a multi-faceted application of artificial intelligence to improve accessibility and service quality in public pension delivery.

Korea's National Pension is a mandatory social insurance scheme covering old-age, survivors, and disability pensions. As of recent years, the NPS serves over 22 million insured persons and manages one of the world's largest public pension funds. The scheme covers both Korean nationals and foreign workers residing in the Republic of Korea, with the latter group representing a growing share of contributors. Foreign workers face particular barriers in accessing pension services due to language difficulties, unfamiliarity with the Korean pension system, and limited availability of multilingual support at traditional service counters.

To address these accessibility challenges, NPS installed AI-equipped KIOSKs at its Customer Centres. These KIOSKs provide general pension counselling, answering questions about contribution obligations, benefit entitlements, lump-sum refund procedures for departing foreign workers, and other pension-related queries. The KIOSKs feature a humanlike digital interface and are designed to supplement, not replace, in-person consultations with NPS staff.

The most significant innovation within this initiative is the real-time AI interpreter service, described by the ISSA as the first such service in the Republic of Korea deployed within a national pension administration context. The interpreter supports ten or more languages, including English, Chinese, and Vietnamese, corresponding to major foreign worker populations in Korea. This service enables foreign contributors to access pension information and complete transactions without requiring a human interpreter to be physically present, reducing barriers to service access.

Beyond the KIOSKs, NPS has created AI-generated virtual employees used for online outreach and educational content creation. These digital personas produce promotional and informational materials about the national pension system and form part of NPS's broader communications strategy.

The AI KIOSK and interpreter initiative sits within NPS's broader fourth-generation information technology system implementation, a digital transformation programme spanning from 2018 to 2024 that established an information platform enabling AI-enhanced pension service delivery. This platform integrates multiple digital service channels including chatbots, mobile office applications, mobile help desks, and the AI KIOSKs.

NPS set specific operational targets for the initiative: by 2025, the service aimed to offer native-language services to 80 per cent of foreign contributors to the national pension system, and to maintain a 90 per cent satisfaction rate among AI KIOSK users.

The initiative was recognised by the International Social Security Association (ISSA), which documented it as Good Practice gp/257677 under the title 'Innovating the National Pension Service with artificial intelligence: Building global accessibility for the future.'

The available sources support multilingual AI interpretation, conversational guidance, and AI-generated outreach content, but they do not disclose the specific model architecture, vendor stack, or whether the system relies on foundation models. The case is therefore coded conservatively as an AI-enabled service interface rather than a documented foundation-model deployment.

The initiative addresses a real operational challenge in social protection delivery: ensuring that mandatory social insurance schemes are accessible to migrant workers and foreign residents who may face language barriers. By deploying AI at the service interface rather than in rights-affecting back-office processing, NPS targets the interaction point where accessibility barriers are most acute.

Classification

Programme Details

Korea's National Pension Service (NPS) deployed AI-equipped KIOSKs in Customer Centres providing general pension counselling with AI agents, a real-time AI interpreter service in 10+ languages for foreign nationals, and AI-generated virtual employees for online outreach and educational content. Part of NPS's 4th-generation IT platform for AI-enabled pension service delivery.

Implementation Details

Agentic AI

Risk & Oversight

Deployment & Outcomes

Sources

1. SRC-001-KOR-006 ISSA (2024) 'Innovating the National Pension Service with artificial intelligence: Building global accessibility for the future', Good Practice in Social Security, International Social Security Association. Available at: https://www.issa.int/gp/257677 (Accessed: 26 March 2026).
   https://www.issa.int/gp/257677
2. SRC-002-KOR-006 ISSA (2024) 'Quality pension service delivery in Asia and the Pacific', Analysis, International Social Security Association. Available at: https://www.issa.int/analysis/quality-pension-service-delivery-asia-and-pacific (Accessed: 26 March 2026).
   https://www.issa.int/analysis/quality-pension-service-delivery-asia-and-pacific
3. SRC-003-KOR-006 ENPF (2024) 'South Korea's Pension System', Unified Accumulative Pension Fund of Kazakhstan. Available at: https://www.enpf.kz/en/press-center/news/18795/ (Accessed: 26 March 2026).
   https://www.enpf.kz/en/press-center/news/18795/