Naver is expanding its support from Smart Store online merchants to helping offline business operators with artificial intelligence transformation (AX).
Naver announced on January 16 that it will extend its decade of online digital transformation (DX) experience to offline businesses and AX initiatives as part of its "Impact Program" supporting Korea's AI ecosystem development.
Starting January 28, the company will launch "Place School" to strengthen offline merchants' capabilities in utilizing solutions. The program will support 8,000 participants annually. Additionally, from June, Naver will conduct the "Place Merchant DX Growth Support Program" for 10,000 Naver Place business operators per year. The initiative will provide on-site consulting to help digitize overall offline store operations including visits, orders, reservations and payments, and build data analysis capabilities based on this foundation.
The company also plans to expand its "Be Local Week" campaign, which connects major local commercial districts with digital platforms, to up to three regions this year following Gyeongju last year.
Naver will simultaneously strengthen support programs to enhance online merchants' AI utilization capabilities. The company plans to upgrade its "Growth Mileage" program launched in July last year and expand the range of AI technology tools and eligible participants from the third quarter of this year. The Growth Mileage program provides AI solutions and technology tools to Smart Store operators. Naver will also expand support for its AI advertising automation solution "ADVoost" to 10,000 merchants while enabling independent online store operators to utilize technology solutions including Naver Login, TalkTalk, Naver Pay, and customer relationship management (CRM) tools.
"The experience and execution capabilities Naver has accumulated over the past decade in online DX are important assets in responding to the new AX paradigm," Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon said. "We will continue to expand this experience to offline businesses and the AI ecosystem so that more operators and creators can broaden their AI utilization opportunities and create new growth models through Naver's technology and infrastructure."
