South Korean internet giant Naver Corp. is set to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) agent in 2026 that will assist users in tasks such as making reservations or purchasing products based on their conversations

The strategy is to introduce a one-stop service that connects Naver’s specialized services - such as blogs, cafes, maps, and Pay - via interactions between users and AI.

Naver announced on Thursday that it plans to unveil an AI agent tentatively named AI Tab in 2036. This agent will understand user context as well as assisting with actions on actual web pages and applications through inference-based reasoning.

If a user enters, “Recommend places to visit in Jeju with a 5-year-old” in the AI Tab, for example, the agent can suggest various locations based on previous conversations.

If a user asks the agent to create a travel itinerary, it will guide the user using Naver Map for the most efficient route. Upon request, it can revise the plan considering factors like child-friendliness or parking availability and even bring up menus for instant booking.

Unlike other AI services that provide similar responses, Naver emphasizes that its agent is tightly integrated with services like maps and reservations, making it a better fit for the new AI agent era that goes beyond just information searches to supporting real world actions.

“Naver’s vertical services - shopping, local, finance, and more - will become extremely valuable in the AI agent era,” Kim Sang-beom, head of Naver’s search platform, said. “From a user’s perspective it is about who manages your data best while delivering all necessary services - and Naver is well-equipped to do that.”

Ahead of the full rollout of the AI agent, Naver will expand the coverage of its AI Briefing feature that summarizes search results and displays them at the top.

Currently applied to around 3 percent of searches, this will increase to 20 percent by the end of 2025 with added topics like finance and healthcare.

AI Briefing will also evolve to support multilingual features and multimedia - such as document translation and summarizing long videos.

AI Briefing is expected to act as a bridge between traditional unified search and the future AI agent.

“Users will first get an answer via AI Briefing in the unified search, and if they want to continue, they can use AI Tab,” Kim Jae-yeop, leader of Naver’s search platform, said. “AI Tab will serve as an entry point to other Naver services such as image or blog tabs.”

[ⓒ 매일경제 & mk.co.kr, 무단 전재, 재배포 및 AI학습 이용 금지]