Naver to launch integrated AI agent for smarter search

Kim Sang-bum, executive director of Naver's Search Quality, speaks during a press conference in Seoul, Thursday, to share the company's search engine strategy. Courtesy of Naver

As the rapid artificial intelligence (AI) transformation reshapes search trends globally, Naver, Korea’s leading internet portal operator, is keeping pace by introducing an AI agent feature within its search engine, integrating its services like shopping, maps and finance.

“The idea of searching was simply about finding information at the beginning … But as it meets AI technology, it goes beyond and expands to offer to summarize content, generate information and more. So building on this, we plan to introduce new services,” Kim Sang-bum, executive director of Naver's Search Quality, said during a press conference in Seoul's Gangnam District Thursday.

The company rolled out an AI briefing feature earlier this year, leveraging its vertical services, such as Naver Shopping, Naver Place and Naver Pay, to offer curated search results in various formats.

Kim Jae-yeop, head of Naver's Search Creative X, noted that by the end of this year, the company will increase AI briefing exposure up to about 20 percent of all searches and extend the feature to include recommendations in areas like shopping and places.

Using the feature as the foundation, the company aims to launch the integrated AI, tentatively named "Tab," to enhance user interaction and lay the groundwork to connect various vertical services in the first half of 2026.

The AI Tab will offer a one-stop experience for users, integrating services such as making reservations for restaurants, planning an itinerary for an outing or purchasing items through a simple search.

Kim Jae-yeop, head of Naver's Search Creative X, speaks during a press conference in Seoul, Thursday. Courtesy of Naver

“We’re advancing our experiments to introduce the AI module to enable it to provide deeper and more comprehensive answers. The AI Tab is designed to better grasp the context of conversations and reasoning processes, allowing (users) to reach their final tasks like reservations and purchases,” Kim Jae-yeop, said.

“The AI agent will take on more advanced tasks; think of it as a space where different vertical agents can come and go, and it can also independently manage tasks as an integrated agent.”

The executive director also announced that the company plans to make more investments to enhance infrastructure for its search engine.

“One of Naver’s core strengths lies in its independently developed search infrastructure, built and refined over decades,” he said, noting that the database it has built up over the past 27 years has positioned the company to gain the upper hand in the search engine market.

“The company will establish a diversified lineup of search-specific large language models tailored to tasks such as query analysis, summarization and document interpretation, and actively invest in securing high-quality content necessary for AI search.”