Trend Korea 2027: The 10 Keywords, Explained for Visitors

Glance at the laptop screens on a Seoul subway in October and you will keep seeing the same few words. “Feelconomy.” “Fundamentalism.” “Healthy pleasure.” It is planning season for next year, and a surprising share of the vocabulary in those planning decks comes from a single book — the one stacked at the front of every bookstore each autumn: Trend Korea.

Most visitors have never heard of it, but you have already seen what it produces: the slogans on Seongsu pop-ups, the odd new shapes of convenience-store products, the hanji paper wrapping on the “traditional” dessert people queue two hours for. This guide unpacks the ten keywords of the brand-new Trend Korea 2027 for travelers, and links each to something you could actually see in Seoul in 2026. If it is the slang itself you are curious about, pair this with our guide to Korean MZ slang in 2026.

What is Trend Korea, and why does everyone use its words?

It is an annual forecast in which a research team led by Seoul National University consumer science professor emeritus Kim Nan-do boils the coming year’s Korean consumer trends down to ten keywords. The 2027 edition has 13 authors (Kim plus 12 co-authors) and is published by Miraeui Chang. The team revealed the keywords at a launch press conference at the Korea Press Center in central Seoul in late September.

What makes the book unusual is less how much it sells than how it gets used. When it comes out, corporate marketing teams lift the keywords straight into their planning-deck titles, and retailers roll out stores and products “aligned with this year’s keyword.” One industry commentator recalls that in the late 2010s you could barely find a pitch deck without the book’s terms in it. For Koreans, then, a Trend Korea keyword is less “what will happen next year” than “what everyone will be saying next year.”

What are the 10 keywords in Trend Korea 2027?

Overload boredom society, Life ROI, form factor shift, the try-it economy, archiving humans, vibe working, retention strategy, human edge, the half signal and eye capital. The headline feature this year: none of the keywords mentions AI. “AI has now become an everyday general-purpose necessity,” Kim said, so the team grouped the keywords around how the technology changes society, organizations and individuals, rather than naming the technology.

📚 Trend Korea 2027's ten keywords at a glance (English labels as reported in Korean media; descriptive translations where none was reported)

The researchers sort the ten into three groups: how society is changing (overload boredom, Life ROI, archiving humans, half signal), how companies and organizations are responding (form factor shift, vibe working, retention strategy), and what individuals should do (try-it economy, human edge, eye capital). We will follow that order below.

Society: what are Koreans tired of right now?

Overload boredom society — busy, but bored

Swiping through Shorts with Netflix on in the background, and still searching for “something more fun.” The researchers distinguish this from the old “nothing to do” kind of boredom and call it overload boredom. In Kim’s words, it is a society where “there are plenty of busy people, but it’s hard to find anyone who says they’re having fun.” The book also cites slang like gwantaegi (burnout on relationships) and chaektaegi (burnout on books).

What a traveler might notice: on the flip side, Seoulites seek out “doing nothing” on purpose. The annual Hangang Space-Out Competition on Jamsu Bridge in Banpo Hangang Park crowns whoever stays most blank for 90 minutes — and its ninth edition in 2025 drew about 4,500 team applications, a record 57-to-1 ratio. That so many people compete to do nothing is overload boredom in a single image. For the rules to follow in Han River parks, see Hangang Park rules and fines.

Life ROI — your life, by return on investment

The arithmetic of effort versus payoff has spilled beyond money into time, jobs, relationships and hobbies. At the launch, the team mentioned a student who calculated the absence limit and emailed to say they would skip the last class of the semester. The interesting part is the backlash: people trim relationships they consider low-return, while the family ties they keep grow even tighter — enough to spawn slang for being obsessed with your mom, grandma or older sister.

What a traveler might notice: it is part of why you see so many mother-and-daughter or grandparent-and-grandchild travel pairs, and why people talk about siseongbi — “time-for-value” — while watching videos at 1.5x. Kim himself drew a line: “Great achievements came from immersion that didn’t count gains and losses,” he said, so this trend is not entirely healthy.

Archiving humans — record first, sort later

In the film era, with 36 shots a roll, you chose carefully. Now that storage limits are gone and AI even searches for you, the default is to record everything and pick later: meetings, lectures and conversations get recorded; places visited, meals eaten and workouts get logged in apps. The researchers note that this raises the stakes for corporate archive management, and for personal privacy.

What a traveler might notice: self-serve photo booths on every nightlife street, phones reaching the table before chopsticks do, fans filming entire concerts. For how the booth brands differ, see our Korean photo booth brand comparison.

Half signal — menopause as the halfway mark

This keyword spotlights Generation X hitting menopause as a new consumer force. With longer life expectancy, menopause is not the “last stretch” but a turning point, and more people are redesigning their health, relationships, spending and sense of self at this stage. Gaengming-out (menopause + coming out) — talking openly about it instead of hiding it — has become common, and the researchers note that some companies abroad are introducing menopause guidelines and leave. The keyword also carries a critique: Korea has plenty of policy for teens and the elderly, but little for people in menopause.

Business: how are shops and products changing?

Form factor shift — same function, new shape

In saturated markets, companies create new demand by changing a product’s form. For travelers, it is also the most visible keyword of the ten. Those “why is this shaped like that?” items on the shelves at Daiso, Olive Young and supermarkets are exactly this.

Vibe working — we have AI, so why isn’t there less work?

This keyword grew out of a simple observation: adopting AI does not, by itself, lift productivity much. Citing McKinsey research, the team noted that fewer than 5% of companies say AI has raised their operating profit, and singled out AI ping-pong — a junior writes a report with AI, the boss reviews it with AI and sends it back — as the classic wheel-spin. The fix: structure work data so AI can read it, and redesign how work flows so people and AI operate as one. To be honest, this is not a keyword you will see as a tourist. But mention it to a Korean office worker and expect a wry smile.

Retention strategy — regulars over newcomers

With a shrinking population and stalled markets, companies are shifting their weight from winning new customers to keeping existing ones. The researchers point out that acquiring a single new customer costs ₩15,000–20,000, yet many take the perks and leave, so they propose experiences that make customers feel respected, beyond mere friendliness or convenience.

Korea’s three mobile carriers acted it out almost perfectly in 2026.

📱 Korea's three carriers and their "long-term customers only" events in 2026 (Digital Daily, 20 May)

What a traveler might notice: why Korean shops have so many membership apps, stamp cards and members-only prices. There are department store tourist memberships that foreigners can join with just a passport — check Seoul department store discounts for tourists.

Individuals: so what is left for people?

Try-it economy — don’t over-prepare, just try

As AI lowers the cost of execution, individuals can try things fast without capital or staff. At the launch, the team described a former TV producer who quit and, using AI for scripts, audiobooks, voice acting and background music, single-handedly made more than 100 children’s stories. “In the past we prepared until things were perfect,” Kim said, “but now trying it quickly is what matters.”

Human edge — the trace of a person

The more AI lifts the average quality of output, the more value lies in what remains of human choice, judgment and responsibility — the handmade touch, even small flaws. The researchers cited stage shows where actors physically performed every scene, and rising competition to get into philosophy departments.

Those philosophy numbers are real. In early admissions for the 2027 school year, according to Jongno Academy’s analysis reported by Weekly Kyunghyang, Korea University’s philosophy department drew 452 applicants for 4 places — 113 to 1 — with Yonsei at 78 to 1 and Seoul National University at 15.44 to 1. Analysts point both to hopes that questioning and reasoning skills matter more in the AI era and to the calculation that philosophy helps with law school entrance exams.

Eye capital — the eye for what is good

When anyone can produce something decent, the ability to pick out what is actually good becomes capital that converts into influence and opportunity. The researchers’ example: people in their 20s and 30s choosing a clinic partly on the staff’s sense of style and the look of the space. “The true winners of the AI era are not the people who use AI well, but the people with a good eye,” Kim said, recommending handwritten notes and seeking out expert opinions as ways to sharpen it.

What a traveler might notice: the edit shops, curated bookstores and three-item-menu cafés of Seongsu and Hannam. More and more Seoul neighborhoods are places where “the shop that chose well” draws the line, not “the shop that sells most.” Our Seongsu cafés top 10 makes good homework.

Did last year’s Trend Korea 2026 keywords come true?

Some showed up vividly on Seoul’s streets; others were hard to feel at all. The 2026 edition’s slogan was HORSE POWER, for the Year of the Red Horse. Matched against scenes SeoulWindow covered this year, here is how it looks.

🐎 Trend Korea 2026 keywords vs. what Seoul actually looked like in 2026 (SeoulWindow's read)

“Fundamentals” and “health quotient” have plenty of evidence just on this site: see the Hanjeongseon story, where hanja signage and hanji wrapping turned fruit rice cakes into a two-hour queue, and our explainer on Korea’s running boom, about the crews running the Han River every weekend morning. The office-side keywords, by contrast, are almost impossible for a traveler to verify. Reading the book becomes much less confusing once you separate “what you can see on the street” from “what only exists in meeting rooms.”

By this time next year, some of these ten words will be forgotten and a few will have slipped into everyday Korean. Watching which way they go from Seoul is a surprisingly fun way to travel. For what Seoul is eating right now, see Seoul dining trends 2026 and our Korean dessert trend timeline.