Naver upgrades search engine with AI

South Korean internet giant Naver has carried out an extensive renewal of the interface of its search engine to maximize user experience for super-personalized results based on artificial intelligence, the company said Friday.

Naver, which operates the country’s No. 1 web portal and search engine, said it has optimized the platform for AI search, responding to rising competition with the emergence of generative AI.

Naver adopted the “Air Search” algorithm for its search engine in 2021, which reinforced its search function with AI technology to offer more customized search results based on such technology for the users, the company said.

“The latest renewal is the optimal design for Air Search that provides personalized search results for users, and has also considered the user experience of SearchGPT that the company plans to introduce within this year,” said Kim Jae-yeop, the head of Search Creative X at Naver.

Naver said it will unveil HyperClova X, its hyperscale AI platform that has stronger Korean language skills than its US rivals -- OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard -- this summer.

The renewal comes after CEO Choi Soo-yeon announced the upgrade during an earnings call earlier in the month. “We’re advancing our services. … Naver is also developing an innovative AI service demo linked with various services to handle the new generative AI trends,” she had said.

The company opened the new search tab function for some users early on, from May 18, as a test. Naver said it plans to upgrade the “tab search” function so that it not only classifies search categories for users, but also serve a “navigation” function to lead to desired search results by identifying search intentions.

The portal operator said it is also testing various other services to reorganize the tab function, as well as on how results are shown and positioned, to improve efficiency and accuracy.

The company said it will expand the service to expose content of various multimedia formats, images and short-form videos.

While other platforms such as Instagram and YouTube offer single-form content, Naver has accumulated a huge amount of content in various forms of text, image and video, the company said. And using its vast pool of sources, Naver will enhance the search experience, the company said.

For instance, when a user searches for an itinerary for traveling to Paris, the portal will provide search results involving multiple images, while text-centered content will be offered when the user searches for year-end tax adjustments.

“We look forward to enhancing the search experience for users with the new search paradigm," Kim said.