Naver will end its related search terms service, introduced in 2007, as of April 30. As AI-based search services expand and functions overlap, the service will close after about 19 years.

Naver said on Monday it will end the related search terms service that had been provided at the top of integrated search results from April 30.

Related search terms is a service that displays, at the top of integrated search, queries that are highly likely to be searched together with the keyword entered by a user. But Naver scrapped related search terms for people’s names in March 2020 as problems persisted, including repeated exposure of defamation and privacy-infringing keywords involving celebrities and malicious keywords targeting specific candidates during election periods.

The direct background to ending related search terms is the expanded application of AI Briefing. Introduced in March last year, AI Briefing is now used by more than 30,000,000 people and was applied to about 20 percent of integrated search queries as of the end of last year. Naver plans to expand coverage to double the current level within this year.

Naver plans to introduce an integrated search system in the first half of this year, centered on the conversational search service "AI Tab" and vertical agents. AI Tab is structured so that agents in areas such as shopping, health and finance are linked to provide information search and recommendations, along with execution functions.