Naver and Kakao are conducting final preparations for their shopping artificial intelligence agents, with public launches targeted for the first half of this year. Shopping AI agents are systems that autonomously perform product searches, comparisons, recommendations, and payments on behalf of users. As Naver and Kakao accelerate their shopping AI agent rollouts, analysts expect "agentic commerce" to gain rapid traction in South Korea.
According to information technology industry sources on May 11, Naver is preparing internal beta testing after announcing its shopping AI agent launch plans during a conference call on May 6. The shopping AI agent works as follows: when a user requests "find me a body lotion with larger capacity and lighter texture than what I've been using," the AI directly searches products on external e-commerce platforms and even completes the payment.
Naver plans to launch individual AI agents for travel and finance following the shopping AI agent later this month, then integrate them into an "AI Tab." The AI Tab, scheduled for release in the first half, will be positioned alongside core functions such as mail, café, and news on Naver's PC main screen and mobile app header.
Kakao is also continuously updating its language model "Kanana," which serves as the foundation for its AI agent service "Kanana in KakaoTalk" ahead of its official launch. Kanana in KakaoTalk is an AI agent embedded in KakaoTalk that analyzes user conversations to provide gift recommendations and reservation suggestions. The company aims to release it in the first quarter following beta testing.
Kakao plans to integrate its pilot "AI Mate Shopping" and "AI Mate Local" features into Kanana in KakaoTalk. By consolidating individual services in one place, Kanana in KakaoTalk is expected to function similarly to Naver's AI Tab.
Additionally, Kakao is expanding external commerce services linked to "ChatGPT for KakaoTalk," which launched in pilot form last year. The company is expected to detail its business plans during a conference call following its earnings announcement on May 12.
Industry observers view it as "a matter of time" before Naver and Kakao's AI agents handle commercial decisions including payments and reservations. Consolidating product recommendations through payments on a single platform offers significant advantages, most notably strengthening control over commerce ecosystems through user lock-in effects.
In the United States, the movement toward delegating product searches through payments to AI agents is even more pronounced. OpenAI introduced an "instant checkout" feature to ChatGPT in September last year, enabling users to complete purchases from external e-commerce companies like Shopify within ChatGPT. Google joined this trend last month by unveiling the "Universal Commerce Protocol," a standard framework for shopping search and payment within Gemini.
Analysts attribute the prioritization of shopping in AI agent applications to its clear monetization model. Naver and Kakao already saw significant performance improvements in advertising and commerce last year as user targeting became more sophisticated. To further boost related revenue, enhancing AI capabilities to recommend products and services with high purchase probability is crucial—an area where AI agents excel. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy stated during a November conference call last year: "Customers who use Rufus [Amazon's shopping AI agent] are 60% more likely to make purchases than those who don't."
However, experts emphasize that ensuring safety in advance is critical given the extensive role of AI agents. Ahn Sung-won, director at the Software Policy & Research Institute, said: "As seen in recent safety controversies surrounding the open-source AI agent 'OpenClaw,' personal data theft could become problematic when AI agent functions expand to include payments. Services must launch only after security is firmly guaranteed."