Lee Gyu-lee is a business writer at The Korea Times, focusing primarily on IT & telecommunications, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and KOTRA. Prior to this, she has covered a wide range of cultural news, from film, television and K-pop to lifestyle and fashion.
Google, Naver integrate ads into AI-powered search tools as search landscape shifts
A screenshot of Naver's artificial intelligence (AI) Tab / Courtesy of Naver
By Lee Gyu-lee
As generative artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes the search engine landscape, Google and Naver are accelerating efforts to integrate advertising into their AI services in a bid to offset soaring infrastructure costs and shore up their legacy ad businesses, with context-driven ads emerging as their preferred solution.
Google has recently opened the door to introduce ads directly into its AI chatbot Gemini, softening its earlier stance that it had no such plans.
During the company’s first-quarter earnings call on April 30, Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler emphasized the longstanding role of advertising in scaling digital platforms.
“Ads have always been a big part of scaling products to reach billions of people,” he said. “And if done well, ads can be really valuable and really helpful commercial information.”
However, he struck a cautious tone, adding, “At the right moment, we'll share any plans as we have said, but we're not rushing anything here."
Google has continued to test paid placements inside the AI Overview feature at the top of its search results, suggesting that extending ad formats into Gemini would be a natural progression.
A screen displays Gemini branding during the company's IPO at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City, N.Y., Sept 12, 2025. Reuters-Yonhap
Naver, which recently reported record first-quarter revenue, is already stepping into the execution phase, announcing plans to begin testing ads within its AI-powered search feature AI Briefing in the second quarter.
The company’s revenue climbed 16.3 percent year-over-year to 3.24 trillion won ($2.22 billion), with its core segment — spanning search, display and commerce ads — up 14.7 percent to 1.84 trillion won.
Advertising revenue grew 9.3 percent, as upgrades to its AI-based ad targeting solution ADVoost lifted efficiency, with AI accounting for more than half of the increase in ad sales for the first time.
“AI technology has been rolled out across Naver’s inventory and ad products, becoming a key growth driver,” the company’s CEO Choi Soo-yeon said during its first-quarter earnings call on April 30.
“As we’ve further refined our ad performance prediction models, we’re seeing clear benefits in both efficiency and targeting.”
Naver plans to lean further into that momentum by rolling out AI Briefing ads, answer-style units that recommend products or locations inside its AI-generated summary feature.
Since the feature’s launch in March last year, follow-up question clicks have jumped roughly tenfold, signaling stronger intent capture and deeper engagement.
The company aims to monetize that traffic with context-aware commercial recommendations, with tests beginning in the second quarter and full-scale rollout slated for the second half of the year.
The company is also strengthening its ad ecosystem, striking a strategic partnership with the global advertising company Criteo to link its ADVoost with Criteo’s AI optimization tools and commerce data.
The partnership aims to boost shopping conversion, extend Naver-powered ads to external media channels and give marketers more precise measurement across campaigns in Korea’s increasingly AI-driven ad market.