Original Coverage & Source Attribution: en.sedaily.com
Hancom (030520.KQ) is joining forces with Amazon Web Services to push its artificial intelligence workforce platform Nomadian into the U.S. market. Ahead of a beta release in late December, the two companies will jointly design everything from product upgrades to pricing policy and marketing strategy. Hancom plans to use the AWS Marketplace as a sales channel to cut the time and cost of winning early customers in the United States. With a partnership spanning product development through sales now in place with a global cloud provider, the company expects Nomadian to gain momentum in establishing itself in the U.S.
Hancom said on the 8th that it will launch Nomadian in the U.S. market in cooperation with AWS. Through a 10-week joint build program called Hancom × AWS CoLab, the two companies will work together across the entire process, from product design to market strategy, launch and marketing.
The cooperation runs along two tracks: product and market. On the product side, Hancom will upgrade Nomadian with support from AWS engineers and complete an initial version that runs in the AWS environment. On the market side, the companies will test market size, customers’ willingness to pay, pricing policy and revenue structure. Hancom will lead the product vision and key decisions.
CoLab is an AWS innovation program that supports customers in developing new products and business models. Based on Amazon’s “working backwards” innovation method, it first defines the customer’s product experience and then designs the initial customer segment, go-to-market strategy and launch roadmap in reverse. Going beyond simple consulting, the program jointly reviews everything from product vision to technology and business strategy, and is tailored to each customer’s needs.
The two companies held a CoLab kickoff meeting on Sept. 21. Hancom executives including Chief Executive Kim Yeon-soo and Chief Technology Officer Chung Ji-hwan attended, along with officials from AWS technology, business development and sales organizations.
Nomadian is an AI workforce platform that lets users hire AI agents as employees and build teams around them. Its main customers are solo entrepreneurs. Users select AI agents for the roles they need, such as data analyst or content marketer, place them in a 3D workspace and run their business from there. When a user gives instructions in natural language, Nomadian breaks the work down and distributes it to the AI employees. Those AI employees draw on Hancom’s 36 years of core document technology to produce reports, proposals and presentation materials. Hancom plans to release a beta service in the United States in late December and commercialize it as a subscription service in 2027.
Hancom expects the partnership to ease the burden of acquiring early customers as it enters the U.S. market. Software companies with little name recognition abroad typically need considerable time and money to win customers, but Hancom will be able to tap AWS’s sales network and commercialization support.
Hancom will first list Nomadian on the AWS Marketplace, a digital catalog where users can search for, buy, deploy and manage software, data and services. That gives the company a distribution route through which existing AWS customers can easily find and use Nomadian.
Hancom also plans to join the AWS ISV Accelerate Program for AWS partners, aiming to secure co-selling opportunities in the United States and other global markets. Because the product is being built in the AWS environment with regulatory and governance requirements reviewed along the way, the company expects the effort to help it win corporate customers that prioritize security and stability.
The growth potential of the U.S. market is also drawing attention. According to 2024 Nonemployer Statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Sept. 29, there were 31.99 million businesses in the United States operating without employees, an increase of more than 1.5 million from a year earlier. That points to an expanding market of solo entrepreneurs and small businesses, the customers Nomadian is targeting.
Small businesses are also using AI more. In a survey of 1,256 companies taking part in its 10,000 Small Businesses program, conducted in January and February this year, Goldman Sachs found that 76% of owners said they use AI. Only 14%, however, said they had fully integrated AI into core operations. Lack of technical expertise and difficulty choosing the right tools were cited as the main obstacles, indicating a persistent gap between using AI and actually handing work over to it.
Hancom aims to carry its AI business results at home into the U.S. subscription market. On a separate basis, first-half revenue came to 98.6 billion won and operating profit to 31 billion won, for an operating margin of 31.5%. AI revenue over the same period was 13.47 billion won, surpassing in six months the 8.91 billion won in AI revenue it booked for all of last year. The company plans to broaden its earnings base by adding Nomadian’s overseas subscription revenue to its growing domestic AI revenue.
“By working with AWS from product design through market entry, we will establish Nomadian in the U.S. market and use it as a springboard for global expansion,” Hancom Chief Executive Kim Yeon-soo said. “In an era where one person can deliver a team’s output alongside AI employees, Hancom will pioneer the AI workforce market so that anyone can become an ‘agent owner’ who grows their own business.”
