The corporation that operates the search portal 'Zoom.com,' EastSoft, has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) search engine service. As the market share of keyword-based search engine services like Zoom.com declines, the company is making a comeback with its AI search engine. However, there are concerns that it may face limitations in competing with global big tech corporations that are entering the AI search engine market.
The AI search engine understands the user's intent and context of the questions, providing accurate and comprehensive answers. In the case of traditional keyword-based searches, the nuances and meanings of user questions are not deeply understood, leading to results that may stray from actual intent. Additionally, the AI search engine can handle complex and lengthy sentences and offers various information types, including audio, images, and videos.
According to EastSoft on the 13th, the company announced that it launched the AI search engine service 'Allen' on the 10th. Allen was developed by combining EastSoft's conversational large language model (LLM) service with search data accumulated over more than ten years by its subsidiary, EastAid, on the Zoom.com search portal. EastSoft stated, "We will become a game changer in the domestic and international AI search market by securing competitiveness in the essential function of search with Allen, which can compete directly with Perplexity and Search GPT."
Allen uses multiple LLMs. EastSoft has equipped Allen with its own LLM technology along with global general models like GPT. This enables the system to accurately understand search intents and guide questions even in various search environments. Notably, EastSoft's proprietary LLM, specialized in Korean, ranked first in the 'Open Ko-LLM leaderboard,' suggesting that Allen is expected to grasp unique expressions and memes (internet trend content) well in the domestic context.
EastSoft's entry into the AI search market is due to the declining market share of portal services. As of the 9th, the domestic market share of Zoom.com was 0.10%, down from the previous year's 0.25%. This issue is not unique to Zoom.com. With the emergence of ChatGPT, AI search engines are rising, transforming the paradigm of a search market that was simply keyword-based. During the same period, Naver's market share was 65.3%, a significant decrease from its 2015 share of 78.06%. Market research firm Gartner projected that the introduction of generative AI technology could reduce the usage frequency of existing search engines by 25% compared to current levels.
However, there are concerns that Allen may face limitations in competing with global big tech corporations that are investing heavily in AI search engine technology. Currently, Google has entered the market with 'AI Overview,' and Microsoft (MS) is using 'Bing.' The characteristics of AI search engines, which utilize LLMs, make economies of scale important. Established services must be continuously used by many people to demonstrate advanced technological capabilities. In fact, Google, as a global search engine leader, utilizes accumulated LLM data, while MS, as the largest shareholder in OpenAI, employs GPT LLM.
The fact that global big tech corporations are launching Korean language services is also bad news for domestic corporations. Initially, it was believed that domestic companies would have an advantage in 'non-English language processing capabilities' at the early stage of LLM releases, but concerns are growing that this may turn out to be a miscalculation. This is because Korean language capabilities are significantly improving in the latest foreign LLMs.
A representative from EastSoft said, "Allen combines the strengths of both traditional keyword-based search engines and AI search engines," adding that "since EastSoft operates Zoom.com and is researching its own LLM, we believe that the two aspects will synergize and provide sufficient competitiveness in the domestic search market."