Beta chatbot next month, public AI agent by year-end

Web-based platform to link KakaoTalk and phone services

MAU target: 5 million by year-end, 30 million by 2030

Kakao Vice President Kim Se-ung (left) and LG Uplus Enterprise Strategy Head Ko Jin-tae during an interview on Tuesday. [Kakao]
Kakao Vice President Kim Se-ung (left) and LG Uplus Enterprise Strategy Head Ko Jin-tae during an interview on Tuesday. [Kakao]

Kakao, selected as the operator of the "AI for All" project, is moving to build a task-completing AI capable of handling real-life needs from start to finish. The company plans to roll out a general-purpose AI chatbot next month, followed by a public-sector AI agent by year-end. It has also set its sights on surpassing ChatGPT's monthly active users in South Korea by 2029.

Kakao Vice President Kim Se-ung said Tuesday that the company plans to release a basic chatbot as a beta service for "AI for All" next month, with the goal of building an agent platform through continuous upgrades. Ko Jin-tae, LG Uplus's enterprise strategy head and a member of the Kakao consortium, also attended the interview.

The Kakao consortium plans to launch a beta service centered on a general-purpose chatbot next month. The official release, scheduled for December, will sequentially unveil specialized AI agents covering public services, health and medical care, and senior care.

On the public services side, the platform will support everyday administrative tasks such as document issuance, submission and pension inquiries. Kim said public services are among the areas where the platform can demonstrate the highest level of task completion from the outset, noting that Kakao is already working with the Ministry of Interior and Safety on an AI citizen assistant service. "This puts us at an advantage over other operators," he said, adding that some health, medical and senior-care AI agents will be unveiled by year-end.

The platform will also offer payment services leveraging existing mobile payment functions. Kim said the company envisions AI going beyond simply finding products to actually completing purchases. "However, a 'payment agent' that independently decides whether to make a payment is difficult to implement, so we will first integrate easy-payment services such as Kakao Pay and Shinhan Bank's Sol Pay," he said.

Kakao Vice President Kim Se-ung (left) and LG Uplus Enterprise Strategy Head Ko Jin-tae during an interview on Tuesday. [Kakao]
Kakao Vice President Kim Se-ung (left) and LG Uplus Enterprise Strategy Head Ko Jin-tae during an interview on Tuesday. [Kakao]

Kakao aims to reach 5 million monthly active users by December, shortly after launch. It then plans to grow to 10 million by the end of 2027 and 30 million by 2030, surpassing ChatGPT's domestic MAU — currently about 17 million — around 2029. Kim said 5 million is an achievable target given the pace at which existing KakaoTalk-based services such as Kakao Pay have built their user bases.

The Kakao consortium is positioning its "task-completing" capability — handling real-life needs from start to finish — as its key competitive edge. Kim said domestic and foreign AI agents have largely achieved this in professional and workplace settings but not in everyday life. "We will differentiate ourselves from foreign AI by building an agent platform that achieves full task completion in daily life, starting with the public sector that citizens use every day," he said.

Ko also said the consortium aims to establish AI as an everyday infrastructure for the public. "We will create a customer experience where AI can be used in daily life as readily as running water or electricity," he said. He added that an internal survey found about 26 percent of respondents did not normally use AI, but that group showed strong interest in using it for healthcare, financial assets and employment.

Kakao Vice President Kim Se-ung during an interview on Tuesday. [Kakao]
Kakao Vice President Kim Se-ung during an interview on Tuesday. [Kakao]

The Kakao consortium has identified the web as the core hub for its AI service. Given that the platform is being built for the entire population, the company said it must adopt the most accessible system possible. Kim said KakaoTalk and phone calls are merely entry points for the service, with the web at its core. "Because it is template-based, it can be conveniently integrated into a wide range of services and devices in the future — from Government24 to LG Electronics' web OS-based home appliances," he said.

The service will be built primarily around domestic AI models — 51 percent from Kakao's Kanana series and 49 percent from LG AI Research's Exaone series — to construct a large language model. Kim said the company plans to select the model that shows the best performance for each service.


chami@heraldcorp.com