Naver's AI search said the apartment price dropped W15m — and it was right

Listings posted at a real estate agency in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, last month. The image is unrelated to the article. [Yonhap]

"The price of an 84-square-meter unit at [a Daejeon apartment complex] has fallen from 210 million won ($146,000) to 195 million won over the past four weeks."

That was the response Naver's AI gave when a user typed the name of a Daejeon apartment complex into the portal's search bar. The AI, tuned for real estate queries, surfaced the price movement on its own — a sign that even as apartment prices surge across much of the country, tools now exist to track where they are quietly falling.

Naver is rolling out a real estate-focused AI search service in earnest this month. Users who search for any apartment complex nationwide in the Naver search bar can already receive the latest market trends for that complex through "AI Briefing," the portal's AI summary feature. By mid-month, Naver plans to embed a dedicated real estate AI agent inside "AI Tab," its conversational AI search service, enabling users to search for and compare listings tailored to their own criteria.

The IT industry confirmed Monday that Naver is launching the real estate-specialized AI search service this month.

The company started Friday by introducing a search experience that lets users look up any apartment complex nationwide and see market prices, charts and available listings at a glance. AI Briefing also analyzes the latest trends for each complex.

Naver has said it intends to roll out AI search experiences tailored to specific verticals — including real estate — throughout this month, with a broader feature combining AI Briefing and AI Tab set to launch in mid-August. "Real estate is a domain where Naver has built services proactively and holds data that sets us apart from competitors," a Naver official said. "In mid-August we will introduce a real estate-specialized AI agent inside AI Tab, and we will continue to advance our vertical-specific search services."

Real estate is widely regarded as one of the fields where Naver can best leverage the data and service capabilities it has built up over decades. Since the early 2000s, the company has integrated real estate data — complex information, market prices, actual transaction prices and listings — into its search services for more than 20 years. Naver is now combining that proprietary data with AI Tab and AI Briefing to differentiate itself from general-purpose AI search rivals.

Rival Daum, by contrast, officially shut down its real estate service in April last year. Although Daum has been focused on upgrading its AI search capabilities since being acquired by AI startup Upstage, analysts say its data foundation for real estate search remains limited.

Naver's plan to deliver vertical-specific AI search experiences across real estate, shopping, places and other categories this year is taking concrete shape. Han Seung-gyun, Naver's AI search leader, said at the "AI Search Tech Deep Talk" event held last month that "starting this third quarter, we will link AI Briefing and Smart Lens to AI Tab and add a real estate-specialized search service."

chami@heraldcorp.com