NAVER will provide an annual support fund of about 13.3 million USD to creators whose content is cited as sources in artificial intelligence (AI) searches, starting from June, based on their contribution to responses. This strategy aims to boost the competitiveness of AI search services by encouraging the production of content used for generating responses.
In the long term, NAVER plans to invest about 665 million USD over five years to establish a virtuous cycle that promotes high-quality content creation and strengthens AI services. Furthermore, the official launch of the AI Tab next month will expand conversational AI search capabilities.
On Thursday, NAVER held a media roundtable at THE PLAZA Seoul, Autograph Collection, titled NAVER’s Data and Content Strategy in the AI Era, where it introduced a new AI fellowship program called Naver Mate.
The More Content Used in AI Responses, the More You Earn… With 13 Million USD in Annual Support
Naver Mate is a reward program that incentivizes the creation of user-generated content (UGC) on the platform and enhances integration with existing NAVER AI search services.
Each month, NAVER will select 3,000 top creators from blogs, Naver Cafe, Knowledge iN, and Naver Premium Contents creators based on AI Briefing citations, providing cash support ranging from about 200 USD to 6,550 USD per person, totaling abou 13.3 million USD annually.
The beta service will run until December, starting with notifications to the first selected creators on June 4, with plans for gradual improvements in the future.
Selected creators’ profiles and content will feature an official emblem, making their content more discoverable in search results, including integrated search and AI Briefings.
Citation counts for each piece of content will be displayed in the source section of AI Briefing results and updated in real-time. NAVER is also considering featuring a separate Creator List category within the AI Briefing page to highlight creators associated with specific topics.
In the second half of the year, the reward program will expand to include short-form video content creators, with plans to increase support based on AI Tab response citations in the future.
NAVER plans to invest abou 665 million USD over five years to develop the creation ecosystem, aiming to secure AI data.
NAVER is expanding rewards for content creators because high-quality data is crucial for training AI services, including search capabilities. NAVER intends to collect high-quality content data across various fields to implement an integrated agent that seamlessly handles the process from search to execution.
Kim Kwang-hyun, NAVER’s Chief Data and Content Officer (CDO), stated that the focus of AI platform competition is shifting from model performance to data quality and service competitiveness. It will invest about 665 million USD over five years to discover excellent content and creators in the AI era.
This extensive investment plan was previously announced by NAVER at their integrated conference DAN25 last November. NAVER plans to allocate most of its resources to securing data through direct rewards for creators, centered around the Naver Mate activity support fund.
The selection criteria for creators in Naver Mate will evolve beyond current citation counts to emphasize reliability and accuracy.
Lee Il-gu, head of NAVER’s content service division, explained that it plans to continuously refine the selection criteria based on citation counts, ultimately aiming to create an ideal structure where highly reliable, high-quality content is frequently cited in AI Briefings.
Meanwhile, NAVER is also focusing on collecting verified external data from public institutions’ documents and websites to improve the accuracy of AI Briefing responses. Currently, 70% of the content cited in AI Briefings comes from NAVER UGC, and NAVER stated that it verifies the reliability of its own content for use in AI services.
Official Launch of the AI Tab Set for June, Featuring Next-Generation HyperCLOVA X
NAVER has also announced improvements to its AI search service. The conversational AI search feature, AI Tab, which was beta-tested with NAVER Plus membership subscribers in April, will officially launch in June.
Within about a month of its launch, the AI Tab surpassed 3 million monthly active users (MAU). Starting next month, the AI Tab will be available to all NAVER users on both mobile and PC platforms. The AI Briefing, launched in March last year, has also secured 30 million MAU, establishing itself as a core search service.
NAVER will implement a service-customized model called Product Native LLM, advancing beyond general-purpose large language models (LLM). As part of this initiative, the next-generation HyperCLOVA X model, an enhancement of NAVER’s existing LLM, will be integrated into the AI Tab next month.
Kim Sang-beom, head of NAVER’s search platform division, stated that the next-generation LLM builds a learning dataset based on users’ entire journey, including what content they view and subsequent questions or purchases. It will gradually implement the next-generation HyperCLOVA X, starting with the AI Tab aimed at all users.
A new version of SmartLens will also be released at the end of June. When users photograph an object, AI-summarized information will be quickly displayed, enabling in-depth conversations through the AI Tab afterward. This process will also showcase shopping links and authentic user reviews of products.
Kim added that the AI Tab has demonstrated significant usage metrics, with a 36% reuse rate within a week and a 71% positive feedback click rate. It will continue to enhance the AI Tab to evolve it into an integrated agent that seamlessly connects to execution.
