Kakao aims to turn KakaoTalk into an AI money machine by 2030
Kakao is recasting its flagship messenger as an AI-powered services platform, with a target of more than 6 trillion won in revenue for its planned AI arm by 2030.
- More than 6 trillion won targeted for Kakao AI by 2030
- AI agents inside KakaoTalk for search, recommendations, purchases, and payments
- Group split into Kakao AI and Kakao X to separate platform and investment businesses
- Digital assets, fintech, mobility, and content stay in play on the other side
That’s the headline, but the real story is bigger than a shiny AI demo. Kakao is trying to turn KakaoTalk’s huge user base into a task-execution layer where software does more than chat back, it acts. Search for something, get a recommendation, make the purchase, complete the payment. Less app-hopping, more one-tap convenience. That’s the pitch.
According to Yonhap, Kakao disclosed the target on Sept. 16, with Kim Do-young, head of Kakao Group Investment Strategy Office, laying out the plan during an online meeting with minority shareholders. Of that 6 trillion won target, roughly 1 trillion won is expected to come from AI services alone.
The split is the other half of the plan
Kakao is also reorganizing its group structure. The board approved a split in August that will divide the company into Kakao AI and Kakao X. The separation is scheduled for Jan. 1, 2027, and Kakao AI is expected to relist on the Korea Exchange on Jan. 27.
The wording matters here. Kakao X will be the surviving corporate entity, while Kakao AI will hold KakaoTalk and the group’s AI, advertising, and commerce businesses. Kakao X will keep the investment arm and retain major stakes in fintech, content, and mobility.
For ordinary readers, that means one side of the house is being built around the app millions already use every day, while the other side gets the riskier, longer-dated bets. For investors, it’s also a way to make the pieces easier to value instead of stuffing everything into one oversized corporate trench coat.
Existing shareholders will receive shares in both businesses based on the planned split ratio: 36% allocated to Kakao AI and 64% to Kakao X. Kakao said the two companies will operate independently after the split, though service and contractual relationships can continue between group businesses.
KakaoTalk is the prize
KakaoTalk has roughly 50 million users, which is the kind of distribution most AI startups can only dream about while pitching “platform synergy” to a room full of polite skeptics.
Kakao wants AI services to reach 20 million daily active users and increase the time spent on KakaoTalk by 50%. That’s a clear sign the company is not just chasing novelty. It wants attention, repeat usage, and a way to monetize those interactions through ads, commerce, and subscriptions.
Jeon Hyun-soo, Kakao’s business leader, said several AI agents would be demonstrated in October at the company’s developer conference. These agents are meant to understand user intent and context, then connect people to services that can carry out the job.
Agentic AI is the industry term for this idea. In plain English, it means AI that does things instead of merely answering questions. A chatbot gives you text. An agent tries to take the next step for you. That distinction is where the money is supposed to come from, and where the hype can get stupid fast if the product is clunky.
Kakao said it plans to combine its own large language models with outside specialist agents. Some functions will also be processed on-device where possible, which can help keep certain data and processing on the phone rather than sending everything to external servers.
That’s the privacy-friendly version of the pitch. It can reduce data exposure and improve responsiveness, but it is not magic. The cloud still does the heavy lifting when tasks get complex. “On-device” is useful. It is not a force field.
Kakao X has its own ambitions
Kakao X is not a side project. It has a 2030 revenue target of 10 trillion won and will focus on investment, fintech, content, mobility, and new growth areas.
Those new areas include virtual assets, live entertainment, global fandom platforms, robotaxis, robot trucks, and physical AI. That last phrase is broad and a little buzzword-heavy, but in practice it points to AI tied to real-world systems and hardware rather than just software running in the background.
For crypto and digital asset watchers, the important part is simple: Kakao is keeping digital assets in its strategic orbit. That does not make it a crypto company, and it does not mean a sudden plunge into token-mania nonsense. It does mean the group sees enough long-term value in fintech and blockchain-adjacent infrastructure to keep the door open.
That matters in South Korea, where payments, banking, and digital asset infrastructure have all been active areas of experimentation. It also matters because giant platform companies rarely mention “digital assets” unless they think there is a real commercial lane there. Corporate curiosity is usually a polite phrase for “we want optionality.”
The real objective: more revenue, less bloat
Kakao’s restructuring is not just about AI branding. It’s also a cleanup job. The company has spent more than two years trying to streamline a sprawling group that expanded from KakaoTalk into finance, content, mobility, and other sectors. The problem with that kind of sprawl is that it can become slow, opaque, and heavily discounted by the market.
Kakao has argued that the new structure will improve capital allocation and execution. The group also wants to preserve enough cash flow after the split to fund AI investment. According to Kakao, the AI arm is expected to drive more than 1 trillion won in AI-related revenue and more than 6 trillion won in total revenue by 2030, while Kakao X is targeting more than 10 trillion won.
Those are not casual “let’s see what happens” numbers. They are management targets that suggest Kakao sees AI not as a feature, but as a full-blown business line with ads, commerce, and subscription economics attached. That is where the real monetization sits, not in chatbot party tricks.
“We felt strongly that we could not afford to miss this moment in the AI era, ” Kim Do-young said.
That’s the subtext in plain language: Kakao does not want to be the giant incumbent that snoozes through the platform shift and wakes up as someone else’s cautionary tale.
Why this matters beyond one company
For AI, the move is a reminder that distribution still matters more than endless demo videos. If Kakao can use KakaoTalk to make AI feel useful in daily life, it has something many AI-first startups do not: a real user base and a daily habit loop.
For fintech and digital assets, Kakao X’s mandate is worth watching because it keeps financial infrastructure and higher-risk growth bets under a separate roof. That setup can be useful if the company wants to pursue stablecoin-like settlement, tokenization, or broader digital asset services later without dragging the core messenger business into every experiment.
For users, the big question is whether KakaoTalk becomes more convenient or just more crowded. A messenger stuffed with AI agents can be genuinely useful. It can also become a bloated mess of features nobody asked for. Convenience wins when it works. Otherwise, it’s just corporate confetti.
Key questions and takeaways
-
What is Kakao trying to build?
Kakao wants KakaoTalk to become an AI-powered interface that can understand intent and carry out tasks like search, recommendations, purchases, and payments. -
What are Kakao AI and Kakao X?
Kakao AI will hold KakaoTalk plus the group’s AI, advertising, and commerce businesses. Kakao X will keep investments and businesses in fintech, content, mobility, and new growth areas. -
Why does the 20 million daily active user target matter?
It shows Kakao is measuring success by actual usage, not just revenue. If people do not use the AI tools regularly, the business case weakens fast. -
Is on-device AI mainly a privacy play?
Partly. Keeping some processing on the phone can reduce how much data leaves the device, but more demanding tasks will still rely on cloud infrastructure. -
Does this make Kakao a crypto company?
No. But Kakao X’s digital asset focus keeps blockchain-linked financial infrastructure on the table, which is a meaningful signal in South Korea’s market. -
What’s the biggest risk in this plan?
That KakaoTalk gets an expensive AI makeover without delivering enough useful action to justify the hype. Great distribution is powerful, but bad execution still ruins everything.
Kakao is making a straightforward bet with a lot of moving parts: if it can make AI genuinely useful inside KakaoTalk, it can deepen user engagement and open fresh revenue streams. If not, it risks turning a dominant messenger into a cluttered showcase for expensive corporate ambition.
Further reading
For the surrounding pieces on Kakao’s AI push, corporate split, and the broader digital-asset backdrop, these are worth a look:
- Kakao sets 6 trillion won revenue target for KakaoAI by 2030
- Kakao to Split into AI and Investment Companies in Major
- Reuters on Kakao’s chat app platform spin-off and 2027 relisting plans
- Reuters on Hana Bank’s reported $700 million Dunamu stake acquisition
- AI Commerce Glossary: 25+ Terms & Concepts Explained
- (2nd LD) Kakao Corp. to spinoff core biz to strengthen AI
- Kazakhstan’s Central Bank Invests $350M in Blockchain and Digital Assets by Q2
- BlackRock’s $14B Crypto Surge in Q2 2025: Digital Assets Hit $79.6B AUM
- U.S. Crypto Adoption Hits 55 Million in 2025: Diverse Demographics Embrace Digital Assets
