[DigitalToday reporter Lee Ho-jung] Naver and Kakao are speeding up monetisation of artificial intelligence services in the second half, backed by strong first-quarter results.

Kakao is expanding an AI service that proactively suggests needed information based on KakaoTalk chat context. Naver is strengthening action-oriented AI that links product recommendations to orders and reservations based on search and purchase history.

Both companies are focusing on directly connecting AI to users' discovery and purchasing process. Their starting points differ. Kakao identifies user intent inside KakaoTalk chatrooms, while Naver combines its search, shopping and payments infrastructure to increase transaction conversion. If the first quarter confirmed the strength of existing platforms, the second half becomes the period to gauge whether AI can translate into actual advertising and commerce revenue.

KAKAO EXPANDS AI COMMERCE TESTS BASED ON KAKAO TALK CHAT CONTEXT

Kakao's main focus this year is "Kanana in KakaoTalk". The key feature is "SunTalk", which has AI suggest needed information first even when users do not explicitly ask. It is structured to extend from schedule reminders and briefings to commerce recommendations. It has been rolled out sequentially on Android and iOS. Monitoring results in April showed positive feedback for SunTalk at about 70 percent, and positive assessments of AI response quality at about 80 percent. User retention held at about 70 percent, similar to the level seen during a closed beta test.

Since April, Kakao has also been running early agent-commerce tests linking Kanana in KakaoTalk with its gifting service. It will also begin tests this month to link with external commerce partners.

Kakao CEO Chung Shin-a (정신아) said on a conference call on May 7, "By before the next quarter's earnings release, you will all be able to experience an early version of Kakao's agent commerce, linked with multiple partner companies across major verticals."

Kakao's push to bring AI services into KakaoTalk is also reflected in user activity metrics. Quarter-on-quarter monthly active users of ChatGPT for Kakao nearly doubled. The number of monthly outbound messages per user also more than doubled. Higher user activity raises the potential to expand advertising inventory. If purchases and payments take place within chats, commerce monetisation opportunities also increase.

In the second half, it plans to shift commerce advertising inventory to an open structure and expand the pool of commerce sellers on the platform into advertisers. By year-end, it aims to raise the share of advertising revenue relative to monthly commerce transaction value to about 4 times the level at the start of the year.

Kakao's first-quarter revenue was 1.94 trillion won, up 11 percent, and operating profit was 211.4 billion won, up 66 percent, marking a first-quarter record. Talk Biz advertising revenue rose 16 percent from a year earlier to 338.4 billion won. The revenue share of display ad products other than Bizboard rose to about 30 percent in the first quarter from the 10 percent range a year earlier.

NAVER MONETISES ACTION-ORIENTED AI LINKING SEARCH, SHOPPING AND PAYMENTS

Naver's approach is to reduce the discovery, comparison and purchase process after a search. AI assists with comparison, recommendations and selection, and connects users to orders and reservations.

A representative example is the "AI Tab", launched on April 27 for Naver Plus members. It provides personalised answers based on search and purchase history. It is a conversational AI search service that links to conversions within Naver services such as shopping and finding restaurants. It will expand verticals in stages to areas such as beauty, travel, health and property listings, and targets monetisation in the fourth quarter. A shopping AI agent launched at the end of February will be upgraded from May to combine membership benefits with delivery management to raise transaction conversion.

Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon (최수연) said on a conference call on April 30, "The completion of action-oriented AI lies in a seamless transaction environment from login to reservation, ordering and payment."

Company internal data showed that ad conversion rates differed by up to nearly 2 times depending on whether payments infrastructure was linked. AI briefing ads will enter full monetisation in the third quarter after tests in the second quarter. The company will first verify profitability of AI advertising in areas with high potential for transaction conversion, such as shopping and local services.

In the second half, it will also introduce unlimited free shipping linked to membership. Sellers that adopted N Delivery saw transaction value growth 4 percentage points higher than those that did not. After shipping benefits were strengthened, order frequency rose by more than 25 percent. The key is to tie search, recommendations, payments and delivery into a single flow so users complete transactions within Naver.

Naver posted first-quarter revenue of 3.24 trillion won, up 16.3 percent, and operating profit of 541.8 billion won, up 7.2 percent. Investment in AI infrastructure and costs related to Winter Olympics and LCK broadcasting rights limited the increase in operating profit, but Naver sees the second half, when AI briefing ad monetisation and expansion of the AI Tab begin, as the period to verify the effects of its investment.

AI MONETISATION TO BE TESTED IN SECOND HALF; KAKAO TARGETS TIME SPENT, NAVER TARGETS CONVERSION

The key to each strategy differs. For Kakao, the focus is increasing time spent on KakaoTalk and linking chat context to commerce and advertising. For Naver, the battleground is conversion rates that carry search and shopping intent through to payments and delivery.

How users experience AI will also diverge. Because Kakao's AI starts the conversation, balancing convenience with a sense of intrusion is important. At Naver, AI operates when users already arrive with search and shopping intent, lowering resistance to use, but the share of AI recommendations that lead to actual transactions will determine monetisation performance.

Monetisation schedules are concentrated in the second half. Naver is positioning third-quarter monetisation of AI briefing ads as the first verification point. Kakao is pushing a shift to open-structure commerce advertising and a broader rollout of agent-commerce partner linkages in the second half.

Ultimately, what the two companies show in the second half will reflect not only the completeness of AI services but also the results of platform strategies built over years. The ways the two platforms used by tens of millions of people every day change in the second half, and whether those changes translate into actual advertising and commerce revenue, are expected to be the first report card in the AI monetisation race.