[Tech Talk Note] From KTX reservations to phone calls... ‘Pickle’, an AI assistant that takes over my work

Pickle, a personal artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, is a service that is attracting attention in Korea by reserving KTX tickets, making restaurant reservations, or calling customer service on behalf of users.

Pickle was developed by a startup of the same name, founded in San Francisco, USA in 2024 by a Korean founding team.

This company first used the name 'Pickle' for its AI avatar service that appears on the screen on behalf of users during video conferences.

It participated in the 2025 winter program of Y Combinator, an American startup incubator, and later expanded its business area to personal AI assistants.

Pickle's main feature is a function that organizes and notifies major schedules when users connect their email and schedule.

Additionally, when a restaurant reservation is requested, candidates are selected based on region, time zone, and number of people, and reservation availability is checked.

Necessary information is additionally asked in the chat window, and depending on the task, an external website may be used or a phone call may be made.

What sets Pickle apart is the ability for each user's Pickle to communicate with each other.

When making an appointment with a friend, the two pickles coordinate the schedule and even make restaurant reservations.

However, Pickle does not decide and pursue all important issues.

According to the app instructions, major tasks such as payment or reservation require user approval before proceeding.

When making a phone call, users can view the call details in real time and receive a summary of the results at the end of the call.

However, in the case of telephone service, the issue is how much the user allows.

This includes whether a request to confirm reservation availability includes a direct phone call, and if the time or number of people changes during the call, whether the reservation will be approved again before confirmation.

Another issue to consider is informing the other party of the call that AI has contacted them and the purpose of the call, and if the other party does not want to respond, ending the call or allowing the user to contact them directly.

Pickle explained that passwords and card numbers are encrypted and stored on the user's device and are not passed on to the AI ​​model.

Employees who are authorized to operate the service or respond to errors are informed that they can view the content of the conversation between the user and the AI ​​and the information stored by the AI ​​to be used in future conversations.