Kakao to release super-large AI model, superapp

Kakao Corp. on Thursday announced that it will transform South Korea’s dominant mobile messaging app KakaoTalk into an AI-powered platform combining communication and social networking features with business, aiming to attract over 10 million daily active users, or one-fifth of the country’s population.

The company is preparing to unveil a super-large generative AI model, KoGPT 2.0, comparable to ChatGPT, around October, its Chief Executive Hong Euntaek said during a second-quarter conference call.

“We will release our AI model prototypes in various sizes as soon as October, which balance performance and cost efficiency,” he said, in reference to the KoGPT 2.0.

The upgrade of KoGPT will be divided by parameter size: those with 6 billion, 13 billion, 25 billion and 65 billion parameters. A larger number of parameters increases the chances of the model memorizing the training data.

Last month, Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. released open-source GPT models with parameters of 7 billion, 13 billion and 70 billion.

OVERHAUL OF KAKAOTALK

KakaoTalk, abbreviated as KaTalk, will overhaul its functions to evolve into a comprehensive communication platform, the company said.

The most significant change will be the introduction of the 24-hour rule, emulating that of Instagram, where photos and videos a user shares disappear after 24 hours.

If the new feature performs well, Hong said the company might consider evolving into a short-form platform, where users upload short content. 

Additionally, it will launch the chatroom recommendation service based on users’ interest within the year, while offering two-way customized services to link e-commerce platforms with KaTalk users.

Kakao's businesses span online banking, gaming, entertainment and taxi-hailing services.

On Thursday, Kakao reported a 12% rise to 2 trillion won ($1.5 billion) in second-quarter revenue. It is the first time its quarterly sales passed the 2 trillion won mark in its history.

But its operating profit margin continued on a downward trend. It fell by 3.8 percentage points to 5.6%, compared to 9.4% in the same quarter of last year, weighed by heavy investments in AI infrastructure and data centers.

Its operating expenses increased 17% on-year to 1.9 trillion won in the second quarter.

Shares in Kakao have skidded 37% over the past year.

Write to Ju-Hyun Lee at deep@hankyung.com


Yeonhee Kim edited this article.