Have you ever had a conversation instead of a search inside a shopping app? Asking "what do I need for camping this weekend" not to ChatGPT but to the store itself, and completing the purchase in the same thread, is now real. AI shopping agents have arrived in Korean commerce.
On July 1, Naver formally launched an AI shopping agent in its shopping app after roughly four months of beta. It is not a guide that finds and summarizes products; it understands the intent behind a question and the shopping context, then proposes next actions. Ask for housewarming party food and it reads the situation and opens the conversation itself.
The numbers support the shift. Daily users of the AI shopping agent in June rose more than 50% versus the March beta start, repeat users roughly tripled, and transaction volume through the agent grew more than 2.7x. Notably, over 70% of users typed questions longer than 15 characters — people who once threw keywords at a search box are now describing situations to an AI.
Naver plans a "full agentic" experience in the second half, extending from search to payment with personalized membership benefits and stronger cart and delivery information. Kakao is preparing its own agent for the second half, built on Kanana 2.5, a lightweight Korean-specialized LLM, running from a KakaoTalk conversation through to payment via external commerce partners. Agents that read context and propose before being asked are being called "proactive AI agents."
The same tooling is fueling exaggerated advertising, fake reviews and brand impersonation. Feed a generative model a product name and a few keywords and it produces, in seconds, bulk reviews that read like genuine purchases. Fabricated personas presented as doctors or pharmacists, and images inflating diet results, are becoming common problems.
Counterfeiting and impersonation losses are significant: 81% of Korean companies report revenue loss from counterfeit goods and brand impersonation, and 82% say they feel damage from generative AI misuse increasing — because fake product pages and impostor accounts can now be produced instantly. For consumers, telling real from fake keeps getting harder.
Naver tightened AI content standards for SmartStore. Images and video created or altered with AI must disclose that fact. Impersonating professionals, imitating celebrities and retouching products beyond reality are now sanctionable. Categories tied to health, such as functional foods and fresh groceries, face stricter standards, and violations can pull the product from the shopping page.
Kakao Shopping has notified sellers that reviews or testimonials written by fabricated personas with no actual usage experience may constitute unfair advertising even when disclosed, and has begun requiring corrections on suspected violations.
The success of agent-led shopping depends on trust rather than technology, which is why platforms are announcing AI features and rules almost simultaneously. An agent is a shop assistant choosing on your behalf — and no assistant, however smart, can choose well from a shelf salted with fakes.
Right now the competition looks like a race over whose agent is smarter. Over time, users will open their wallets for the AI they trust rather than the AI that knows more. The seller-side conclusion is the same: whoever cleans up the shelf — the product data — gets chosen by the agents.
For the store-side checklist, see Four Things Online Stores Should Fix for AI Search; for how platforms are filtering AI-generated content, see Can the Apps Stop AI Slop?.
June daily users were up more than 50% from the March beta launch, repeat users roughly tripled, and transaction volume through the agent rose more than 2.7x.
More than 70% of users now type questions longer than 15 characters, describing situations and goals rather than entering keywords.
Naver requires disclosure on AI-created or altered images and video and sanctions professional impersonation, celebrity imitation and misleading product retouching. Kakao Shopping warns that fabricated-persona reviews may be unfair advertising even when labeled.
To apply what you just read to your own site, start with a free audit of where things are now.
A strategist replies within 24 hours on business days.
Naver reduced fixed ad slots in mobile search shopping results, expanding organic listings based on user response and relevance after four rounds of testing.
TikTok Shop's July U.S. spend surpassed Target, Costco and Home Depot online sales, with share rising from 1.2% to 2% in a year. Inside a model where 5% of buyers drive 30% of spend.
Salesforce data shows AI product discovery at the start of the shopping journey grew 200% year over year while traditional search fell 15%. What commerce teams fixed, and the data problems still blocking them.