Kakao Group said it has finished more than two years of strengthening its fundamentals and declared 2026 the first year of “directional growth”. The key words are artificial intelligence (AI) and global expansion.

In a New Year message on Thursday, Chair Chung Shin-a looked back on last year as “a time of condensation” in which the group strengthened its fundamentals and reorganised its systems while gathering capabilities around core areas. “Now is the time to shift gears to growth based on that condensed energy,” she said.

Kakao Group has carried out intensive governance efficiency measures across the group over the past more than two years. As a result, it cut the number of affiliates from a peak of 147 to 94 as of the end of last year, and achieved financial stability after posting record quarterly results in the second and third quarters of 2025.

Kakao Group presented two core pillars to drive growth in 2026: people-centered AI and a global fandom OS.

The first growth pillar, people-centered AI, is a strategy to maximise Kakao’s strengths from understanding the contexts of daily life and relationships of 50,000,000 users. Chung said AI will evolve beyond a tool that simply carries out commands into agentic AI that first understands a user’s intent and situation and links the next action. Kakao Group plans to further advance on-device AI that protects personal information.

To strengthen execution of its AI strategy, it will internalise B2C services and core technologies while flexibly expanding infrastructure areas that require large-scale investment through external partnerships. The strategy aims to ensure sustainable growth by securing efficiency and scalability at the same time.

The second growth pillar is a “global fandom OS” that will extend worldwide. The plan is to combine the group’s “full-stack assets” such as super IP, platforms and online and offline interfaces to build a global fandom ecosystem where fans around the world communicate and create value.

Web3 will serve as the core infrastructure that links these two growth pillars to expand user value. Web3 will function as a trust network that securely and transparently connects a range of activities, from reservations and payments by AI agents to benefits for fan participation. This will ultimately lead to the realisation of Kakao Group’s “next finance”.

Chung defined 2026 as “the year Kakao’s new 15 years begin.” Addressing employees, she urged them not to be complacent with past formulas for success and to use AI as a “creative multiplier” that amplifies individual capabilities and ideas to pursue bold challenges where 1+1 goes beyond 2. She also said the growth the group will create is a process that proves pride and social responsibility of South Korean IT companies beyond financial results, and stressed pushing forward to a higher place and a wider world beyond the waves of change.