South Korea’s largest mobile platform operator Kakao Corp. has jumped on the artificial intelligence (AI) bandwagon by setting up a subsidiary named Kakao Brain that will steer the development of AI-powered Kakao services.

Kakao announced on Tuesday that it had launched its wholly-owned subsidiary Kakao Brain with 20 billion won ($17.5 million) in equity capital on February 1. An official from the company said that Kakao has set up the separated subsidiary, not an internal division under Kakao, to allow quick and independent decision making. The company’s chairman Kim Beom-soo leads the new entity.

Kakao’s decision to launch AI-focused Kakao Brain comes after the nation’s top online portal operator Naver Corp. last year formed an AI task force team with an aim to develop AI-incorporated solutions. Kakao Brain’s chief Kim emphasized his new team should catch up with its rival Naver’s AI task force team, according to sources.

Naver established its AI development team named “J” after Jarvis, the AI assistant in the movie Iron Man, in October last year under the order of the company’s founder and board chairman Lee Hae-jin. The task force led by Shin Joong-ho, Naver’s massaging app Line Corp.’s Chief Global Officer, is staffed by carefully recruited 150 employees.

But Kakao’s AI dedicated team has a different goal from Naver’s. Kakao aims to advance its mobile messenger KakaoTalk by developing a chatting robot through Kakao Brain. Its ultimate goal is to develop a chat bot that can order food or offer weather information on user’s request to enhance user convenience in daily lives.

Naver, on the other hand, aims to develop AI solutions going beyond mobile environment. Its first goal is to launch an AI speaker like Amazon’s Echo by April this year. It has also been developing services based on its digital assistant dubbed AMICA that was unveiled last year. The voice-activated AI system is capable of informing schedules or controlling appliances. It also features a multi-tasking function that provides users with related information in addition to the original request.

By Oh Chan-jong

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