Naver and Kakao are focused on expanding personnel to develop artificial intelligence (AI) shopping services. Their strategy aims to improve shopping convenience by analyzing users' preferences and recommending suitable products. Since this area can increase revenue by integrating AI based on their existing customer base, it appears that they are concentrating on developing related technologies.
According to industry sources on the 27th, Naver has been conducting career recruitment for the Naver Shopping AI and machine learning (ML) positions since the 19th. This position develops technology that analyzes shopping users' brand preferences, prices, styles, and purchasing patterns to provide suitable search results. The ML position developer analyzes users' search patterns and develops services that aggregate product rankings.
Naver plans to release an application called 'Naver Plus Store' in the first half of next year, which will enhance AI-based personalized shopping features. This service will provide not only product recommendations that users are likely to prefer but also information on shopping-related content and popular trends.
Kakao is reportedly developing an AI gifting service by deploying over 100 developers from its subsidiary, Kakao Brain, which it acquired in May. On the 13th, Kakao introduced the beta version of the 'AI Shopping Mate' on KakaoTalk's gifting feature. The service suggests gifts that are frequently mentioned on social media (SNS) and clearly presents the source or reasons for the recommendations. Kakao plans to complete testing within this year and formally launch the AI Shopping Mate next year.
AI shopping is a priority area that Naver and Kakao have identified this year. Choi Soo-yeon, CEO of Naver, noted during the third quarter earnings conference call that "we will provide consumers with a new level of shopping experience tailored to the individual through AI, and evolve into a user-friendly commerce platform that can facilitate not just shopping searches but also easily discover products through AI buying guides." Jeong Shin-a, CEO of Kakao, also indicated during the third quarter earnings conference call that "currently, 1.8 million profile D-Day data has been accumulated on KakaoTalk, and we are considering linking the gifting service to major anniversaries."
Naver and Kakao appear to be focusing on enhancing their shopping services to rapidly increase AI revenue and simultaneously improve model sophistication through data collection. Naver's commerce revenue increased by 12% year-on-year in the third quarter, while Kakao also showed stable growth, with transaction-based revenue from gifting and Talk Store rising by 8%. In areas where services compete based on the performance of AI models like chatbots, the influence of big tech companies such as OpenAI and Google is overwhelming.
Choi Byung-ho, a professor at Korea University’s Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, stated that "in a situation where resources available for AI are relatively scarce compared to big tech, the area where Naver and Kakao can quickly increase revenue is shopping," and added that "they are likely to continue recruiting to focus their efforts on AI shopping across the organization."