Naver to boost search engine with assistance from AI

Korea’s top portal operator, Naver, said Friday it plans to continuously improve the service of its search engine by adopting more advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which can provide users with customized content.

“The AI technology, which recently received a lot of spotlight, is quickly integrating with existing search-engine services,” said Kim Kwang-hyun, who oversees Naver’s search engine.

Naver said it is especially focusing on improving its searches based on images and natural languages, as well as automatically recommending results to users. Such measures can lead to higher accuracy for people wanting to search for things on the Internet.

“[Naver] plans to provide a beta edition of the image-based search in the first half of 2017,” Kim said.

The company said it will also release a new service that allows users to find products from online shopping malls simply by uploading images.

By having its search engine understand spoken languages, Naver said it plans to find direct answers to questions that people type in, instead of just providing them with related links to examine. YONHAP