Kyobo has 100,000 volumes, and Aladin and others also have large collections suspected of AI learning.

Several foreign companies have placed large orders for Korean books with major bookstores in South Korea, sparking concerns over artificial intelligence (AI) developers' data collection practices. Over 10 companies from the US, UK, and other countries have ordered around 100,000 books from Kyobobook, with some requests specifying that they want to buy one copy of every book, regardless of genre.

The orders were deemed suspicious, and Kyobobook has halted the transactions, while other bookstores, such as Aladin and Yes24, have also received similar requests. The issue has raised concerns in the publishing industry, with the Korea Publishers Association planning to conduct an emergency survey on the matter.