Kakao announced on the 28th that it will hold the 'If Kakao(if(kakao)25)' conference at the 'Kakao AI Campus' in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province from September 23 to 25.
This year marks the 7th edition of If Kakao, an event to share and communicate the technology experiences and achievements of the Kakao Group. Kakao has set the slogan of this conference as 'Possibility becomes everyday life' and plans to showcase various achievements and outcomes aimed at the popularization of artificial intelligence (AI).
In particular, as Kakao has focused its capabilities around AI and KakaoTalk, the event is expected to provide insights into Kakao's technological innovations and service direction.
On the first day of the conference, Chung Shina, the CEO, will present the KakaoTalk redesign and new AI services, along with products co-developed with OpenAI, while outlining Kakao's vision of making possibilities into everyday life. Kakao's Chief Product Officer (CPO), Hong Mintae, will showcase specific directions for KakaoTalk's redesign and service format, while Kim Byunghak, the Kanana Performance Leader, will discuss the advancement process and results of the Kanana model developed using Kakao's own technology.
The second day will feature a session delving deeply into Kakao's AI technology. Following up from day one, Kim Byunghak will share use cases of the Kanana model along with strategies for developing the Agentic AI model. Additionally, Lee Sangho, the AI Safety & Quality Performance Leader, will present efforts and plans for AI ethics and safety at Kakao. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Jeong Gyu-don will share achievements from the past year in promoting AI-native transformation, applying AI across all areas from infrastructure to service releases.
In addition, attempts to expand the AI agent ecosystem, including on-device AI and the open MCP platform 'PlayMCP', will be presented during keynote sessions over the two days. Leaders and developers driving Kakao's AI and services will also participate as speakers to introduce technological visions and new services. In addition to the technical sessions, a wide range of topics will be presented including advertising, design, trends in emoticons, and ecosystem building with creators.
The last day, the 25th, will be 'Krew Day' for Kakao crew (employees), featuring a special program where Kakao Group developers share and exchange technical know-how. Attendees will have the opportunity to experience the services introduced in the keynote session, as well as Kakao's self-developed Kanana language model, multimodal language model, and video model in the experience zone set up at the venue.
Registration for the conference will be possible through the official 'If Kakao' website from 12 p.m. on this day until September 8. The final participants will be selected through a lottery among the applicants and will be notified through a separate channel. The keynote session will be available for live streaming on the official website, allowing those who cannot attend in person to watch it. Videos of all sessions will be uploaded after the event concludes.