Kakao Mobility has formalised its transition into a physical AI company and is speeding up efforts to advance autonomous driving technology. The company held an all-hands meeting for all employees on April 30 at its Pangyo headquarters. At the meeting, Vice President Jin-gyu Kim (김진규), head of the physical AI division, directly shared its autonomous driving strategy and technology direction. Kim said, "Based on the Kakao T platform's data and technological capabilities, we will add a new technological value called physical AI to drive new mobility innovation."

Kim emphasised at the event that Kakao Mobility is a company with a strong foundation to successfully deliver autonomous driving technology as a service. He cited operational know-how built from solving complex problems in real-world settings and service capabilities that have put customer safety first as assets that even global big tech companies cannot replicate. He said the company will pursue "co-advancement" in which existing mobility services and future technologies develop together.

The company also laid out concrete measures to advance its technology. It will combine infrastructure built through the Kakao T platform with its in-house autonomous driving technology to build a large-scale data pipeline and further develop its core E2E (end-to-end) autonomous driving model. The scope of technologies to be secured spans all areas from software to hardware. The strategy is to secure global competitiveness in the autonomous driving market through three pillars: an advanced E2E model, an autonomous vehicle verification pipeline and an intelligent integrated safety management platform for autonomous driving.

Alongside building its own model, the company will also strengthen external cooperation. It plans to expand joint development with autonomous driving companies and academia and to broaden its domestic autonomous driving partnerships that have continued since 2020 to build an open ecosystem. Kim said, "I have watched the technology status of many companies at home and abroad, but I think Kakao Mobility is one of the companies with technology high enough to stably implement real passenger transport services in the complex Gangnam downtown area," and "We plan to further advance the 'planner', a core element responsible for autonomous vehicle decision-making, through high-quality data and apply it sequentially to services in the Gangnam area."