Kakao CEO Chung Shin-a, addressing user complaints that poured in over the KakaoTalk overhaul, said, "We will collect user feedback and push ahead with a range of service improvements, including the KakaoTalk Friends tab redesign scheduled within the year." Chung said, "It is a meaningful change that KakaoTalk time spent, which had been stabilizing downward after the overhaul, has begun to rebound."
Chung said on the earnings conference call for the third quarter held on the 7th that "raising time spent on a messenger-style platform is quite challenging," but added, "since the overhaul, time spent has increased by more than 10% compared with the third-quarter average." Chung added, "Before the overhaul, the average daily time spent was in the 24-minute range, but it is now nearing 26 minutes."
Chung added, "The increase in time spent is only the beginning," and "we will do our utmost to achieve the target of a 20% increase in time spent."
Chung gave a detailed explanation of the changes to KakaoTalk that day. Kakao overhauled its mobile messenger KakaoTalk on Sept. 23, and user complaints poured in over changing the friends list to a feed format like Instagram. Chung added, "Because KakaoTalk began as a messenger service, we plan to apply, step by step, various customized convenience features that many users have requested, and in parallel actively advance the core message experience at its foundation."
Chung said the company will strengthen a customized folder feature that classifies the many chatrooms in the Chats tab into folders by purpose so users can see different relationship-based conversations at a glance. Chung said, "Like the already released 'Unread' folder, we will let users organize chatrooms into various categories that match their intended purpose, such as 'Family' or 'Work,' and within those, favorites will be automatically classified for easier management."
Chung continued, "We are applying the current AI Summarize service to the 'Unread' folder to gauge user response, and if usability is proven, we plan to expand it to various areas." The idea is for AI to summarize the vast volume of messages exchanged across multiple chatrooms within a single chat folder so that users can grasp the flow of conversation and key points at a glance without entering each chatroom one by one.
Displaying confidence in building an artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem, Chung emphasized that Kakao's ultimate destination is agentic AI. Chung said, "Kakao will build an AI ecosystem," and "Kakao is ahead of anyone else in agentic AI." Chung added, "The era of agentic AI has opened, where it accurately understands user intent in context and, in combination with other agentic AI, makes its own judgments and acts," and "this year, Kakao took its first step toward agentic AI, and going forward we will launch various services, including 'Kanana Search,' which incorporates user context."
Kakao also mentioned the performance of "ChatGPT for Kakao," embedded in KakaoTalk in collaboration with OpenAI.
Chung said, "As of yesterday, the 10th day since the launch of ChatGPT for Kakao, the number of users surpassed 2 million," adding, "the number of messages sent per user and time spent are also showing a clear upward trend, so our assessment so far is positive." Chung added, "In particular, the average time spent by daily active users increased to about 4 minutes as of yesterday," and "this means that, starting with the launch of ChatGPT for Kakao and AI services, KakaoTalk's usability is expanding beyond simple messaging to focus on exploration and search."