South Korea’s Ubase acquires Return Zero to complete its AICC stack
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — Ubase Group, South Korea’s largest artificial intelligence contact center (AICC) company, has agreed to acquire Return Zero, a domestic voice AI startup with industry-leading speech-to-text (STT) and real-time processing capabilities.
According to a report from Maeil Business, the deal follows four prior technology acquisitions — WIGO, Nexus Community, Hanil Networks, and Center Link — and gives Ubase full in-house ownership of every layer in its AICC delivery stack.
The combined entity will support Ubase’s commercialization of a completed AI counseling agent, scheduled for launch in July 2026.
Return Zero seals Ubase’s in-house voice AI
Return Zero’s server architecture delivers industry-leading real-time processing performance and simultaneous access efficiency — voice-to-text capabilities Ubase has until now sourced from external vendors.
The acquisition internalizes voice AI at the contact center’s intake layer, converting spoken customer intent into structured data for the AI agent to process in real time. With Return Zero integrated, Ubase’s AI agent executes the full counseling cycle — identifying intent, consulting, processing, and closing — without external technology dependencies.
“This acquisition will signal a shift in the paradigm of the BPO industry by adding cutting-edge AI technology to the sensitivity and expertise of human counselors beyond technological combination,” said Mok Jin-won, CEO of Ubase.
Complete stack fuels Ubase’s global BPO ambition
Ubase’s AI counseling agent — due for commercial launch in July 2026 — is built to execute the entire contact center cycle without human escalation for routine interactions.
The five-acquisition strategy mirrors how global business process outsourcing (BPO) firms build proprietary technology differentiation, assembling owned components across AI, operations software, and voice processing rather than licensing from third parties.
Ubase’s fully internalized AICC stack eliminates the margin compression and integration risk of licensing voice AI, orchestration, and contact center software from separate vendors.
“Ubase will redefine the standard of global BPO industry in the AI era where people and AI are in perfect harmony, co-prosperity, and synergy at the counseling site,” Mok added.
South Korea’s contact center outsourcing market has been among Asia’s most AI-aggressive, driven by high digital penetration and enterprise buyers that have moved from AI pilots to production-scale automation.
Korean BPO firms face mounting competition from global AICC vendors entering the domestic market, making full-stack technology ownership — rather than third-party licensing — a defensible position against larger international players.
The global AI contact center market is projected to exceed $5 billion by 2028, with Asia-Pacific among the fastest-growing regions, per multiple industry research estimates.
For Ubase, completing the stack ahead of its July agent launch positions the company to export the AICC model internationally rather than defending domestic market share alone.
