NAVER Expands AI Search Coverage to 20% by Year-End

Seoul, South Korea - NAVER announced that it will expand the coverage of its AI Briefing search feature to approximately 20 percent by year-end, up from its current levels.

The South Korean search engine operator outlined plans to develop AI agents across various categories, including information, shopping, local services, and finance, according to its press release.

NAVER's AI Briefing feature has seen nearly three times the visibility increase since its launch. 

Clicks on related questions increased 3.4 times compared to the previous keyword suggestion section, while clicks on "See More" buttons rose 50 percent, the company said.

The feature's click-through rate was measured as eight percentage points higher than that of conventional answer-type content. 

The time spent on the top search area has increased by 22 percent since its introduction, according to company data.

NAVER will introduce topic-specific versions covering finance and healthcare by year-end, said Kim Sang-bum, Leader of NAVER's AI Search. 

The feature will add multilingual support and multimedia capabilities, including translation and summarization of international documents, as well as highlights of long-form videos.

The company will develop specialized large language models for tasks such as query analysis, summarization, and document parsing based on its HyperCLOVA X platform.

NAVER operates a search infrastructure that has been developed over nearly 27 years.

The company expanded its web indexing scale and performance in August 2024.

The platform features user-generated content services, including NAVER Blog, Cafe, and Knowledge iN, as well as vertical services, such as NAVER Shopping, Map, and Pay. 

These services support various AI Briefing content types, including official, multisource, short-form, location-based, and shopping-specific versions.

Kim Jae-yeop, Leader of NAVER's Intelligent Search X, said the company plans to launch a feature tentatively called "AI Tab" next year. 

The feature will operate as a separate page within NAVER's search platform, supporting booking, purchasing, and payment functions.

NAVER announced an initiative called the "AI Highlight Project" for content creators. 

The program will feature highlight badges for creator content cited in AI Briefing and interface elements that allow users to engage with creators, join communities, or subscribe to paid content.