[DigitalToday reporter Ho-jung Lee] Kakao said on July 20 it will run its "Kanana Petletter" event through Aug. 14, based on its in-house omnImodal artificial intelligence (AI) model "Kanana-O". The event infers a pet’s psychology and turns it into a letter.

The promotion was designed to lower the barrier for users by combining Kakao’s next-generation AI technology with popular pet content. The AI independently interprets a pet photo uploaded by a user and generates a video letter (petletter) sent to the owner from the animal’s point of view.

Kanana-O, the core of the feature, is an omnImodal model that can recognize and compute different types of data such as text, voice and images at once. It goes beyond simply recognizing an animal species. It comprehensively calculates facial expressions, background objects and contextual circumstances captured in a photo. Based on that, it generates natural sentences and emotional voice utterances that make it sound like the pet is speaking to a person.

Kakao also added its AI guardrail model, "Kanana Safeguard", to block harmful content generation in advance, securing service stability and reliability.

Users need to upload 1 pet photo and then enter the name and the relationship with the owner. For voice tone, they can choose from 5 concepts: "cheerful", "witty", "prim", "affectionate" and "aggrieved".

Once users complete the settings and request production, Kanana-O completes a customized video letter combining text and voice based on the analysis. When the work is finished, a notification is sent via KakaoTalk’s official channel, "Kanana Tips".

A rewards event for participants will also be held. All users who complete the letter production will be eligible to receive, through a draw, a KakaoTalk Gift exchange voucher worth 20,000 won. Kakao also plans to give an additional gift certificate worth 300,000 won through a draw to users who post the completed video on social media such as their own Instagram and tag the official Kanana account.

A Kakao official said, "We hope many people will enjoy experiencing Kanana’s AI technology through this event, which started from the hearts of pet owners who want to share warm interaction with their companion animals." The official added, "We plan to continue expanding points of contact between users and AI through distinctive ways to encounter AI in everyday life."