Kakao to unveil Korean language-specific, vertical AI

Kakao Corp., South Korea’s No. 1 mobile messenger platform, will launch Korean language-specific, vertically-integrated AI service this year so that it can better compete with super-large AI models developed by global rivals, its Chief Executive Hong Euntaek said on Friday.

Utilizing its existing AI app KoGPT, the new AI tool will specialize in a specific industry, or take a vertically-integrated approach within a value chain.

It is based on OpenAI’s GPT-3, the most powerful language processing AI tool, and trained primarily on Korean texts.

“We will focus on vertical AI services, where we can do better than global rivals, utilizing our Korean language-specific AI model KoGPT,” Hong told a conference call.

KoGPT is short for Korean Generative Pre-trained Transformer.

He said that super-scale AI would not be differentiated by innovative ideas, but by its process capability. That means AI powerhouses with plenty of capital and technologies will likely continue to lead the machine learning field.

To differentiate from super AI models, the revamped KoGPT will boost its price competitiveness and efficiency as well.

The KoChat could apply to Kakao's personal assistant app Jordy, advertising text generation service for merchants and the image creation model Karlo. They could be available for KakaoTalk messenger users, Hong said.

Kakao Chief Investment Officer Bae Jaehyun said that KoGPT would have less parameters than super AI, but its performance would likely match the latter’s.

A parameter determines how much information the AI can process in machine learning.

Kakao Brain Corp. and Kakao Enterprise Corp. are the main subsidiaries that have led the mobile platform’s AI development. Its new investment on KoGPT will not significantly increase from its previous spending in the service, Bae added.

On Friday, Kakao Corp. released its fourth-quarter results. It swung to a net loss of 539.3 billion won ($427 million) in the fourth quarter of last year, versus a net profit of 224.1 billion won in the year prior.

Meanwhile, the country’s two telecom operators KT Corp. and SK Telecom Co. recently announced that they would launch upgraded AI models within the year.

Write to Sang-eun Lucia Lee at selee@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article