On the 8th, NAVER announced that it will enhance the search experience by launching a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) tab next year.
At the conference call for the second quarter earnings announcement held on the morning of the 8th, NAVER CEO Choi Soo-yeon noted, "We will increase the AI briefing coverage by 20% compared to the original target by the end of the year."
Choi said, "NAVER is a platform that accurately captures the comprehensive usage patterns of users' daily lives in search, shopping, payment, reservations, and visits, based on an overwhelming amount of user-generated content (UGC) and business data such as shopping places."
He continued, "As the AI technology of the content and data unique to NAVER is added, the platform's competitiveness is further strengthened, and the revenue generation is also expanding." He also remarked that "the AI briefing, which has expanded to 8% of total search queries, has grown into a service used by 30 million people monthly."
He explained, "For queries where AI briefings are implemented, we received positive feedback, as users' dwell time on search results increased by more than 20%."
Choi emphasized, "In 2026, we will launch an AI tab that enables the use of conversational AI search within a separate tab on NAVER, providing in-depth experiences based on data in shopping, local, and finance." He added, "Ultimately, based on an understanding of AI search behavior and know-how in applying AI technology, we will introduce an integrated AI agent that permeates the entire NAVER ecosystem, establishing itself as an essential service in the era of AI."
On the same day, NAVER announced that it recorded 2.9151 trillion won in revenue, 521.6 billion won in operating profit, and 497.4 billion won in net income for the second quarter. Revenues for the second quarter increased by 11.7% and operating profit by 10.3% compared to the same period last year.