The company says full-scale AI monetization will start in 2027, backed by record second-quarter 2026 results and a plan spanning agent commerce, subscriptions and new ad formats.
Kakao set out a timetable to turn artificial intelligence into a meaningful earnings driver, saying 2027 will mark the start of full-scale monetization and targeting a double-digit share of Talk Biz revenue from AI by 2028. CEO Chung Shin-a said on the company’s second-quarter 2026 earnings call that the groundwork for broad AI adoption should be in place by the end of this year. The company’s AI revenue strategy has three pillars: transaction fees from agent commerce, subscription income from advanced personalized AI features, and, over the medium to long term, a new AI advertising model separate from existing KakaoTalk ads. Kakao plans to first build usage, then layer in monetization through transactions, subscriptions and ads. It aims to roll out agentic AI (task-performing AI assistants) experiences in KakaoTalk in the second half of this year and secure more than 10 million monthly active users for its AI services by year-end. Kakao said it is working with partners in commerce, reservations, travel and payments, and plans to widen links to outside services through PlayMCP, an open platform based on MCP (Model Context Protocol, a standard for linking AI to tools and data). Chung said competitiveness in the agentic AI era depends less on building better models alone than on understanding user context and intent and connecting that to real-world actions. The push comes as Kakao reported record quarterly revenue and operating profit, giving it more room to fund AI expansion. Consolidated second-quarter revenue rose 9% year over year to ₩2.1 trillion, or about $1.5 billion, while operating profit climbed 36% to ₩277 billion, or about $195.3 million. Operating margin improved by about 3 percentage points to 13%, and operating expenses increased 6% to ₩1.82 trillion. Platform revenue led growth, rising 17% to ₩1.23 trillion. Within that, Talk Biz revenue increased 12% to ₩643.2 billion, helped by a 14% rise in advertising and subscription revenue and a 10% gain in commerce revenue. Investors are focusing on whether Kakao can convert KakaoTalk’s more than 40 million monthly active users into paying AI customers and how quickly those services begin contributing to revenue.