Naver Chief Data and Contents Officer Kim Kwang-hyun speaks during a media roundtable in Seoul on Thursday. (Naver) Naver said Thursday it will invest 1 trillion won ($663 million) over the next five years to strengthen its creator ecosystem, betting that user-generated content will become a key asset in the next phase of artificial intelligence services.“The center of competition among AI platforms is moving toward data quality and service competitiveness,” Chief Data and Contents Officer Kim Kwang-hyun said at the company’s media roundtable in Seoul. “Naver’s independent content ecosystem, built over more than 25 years, is our strongest asset.”Naver will launch Naver Mate, a new support program for creators, next month, targeting user-generated content — posts, reviews, answers and other content produced by users.The company will name about 3,000 creators every month from Blog, Cafe, Knowledge iN and Premium Contents, based on how often their content is cited in AI Briefing, Naver’s AI-powered summary feature. Knowledge iN is Naver’s long-running question-and-answer service.Selected creators will receive an official emblem and cash support ranging from 300,000 won to 10 million won per person, under a support package worth 20 billion won a year.The program will expand in the second half to include creators on Clip, Naver’s short-form video service, and run in beta through the end of the year.Naver also used the roundtable to lay out the technology behind its AI agent push.The company said the effort will be supported by large language models tailored to individual services, about 10 billion pieces of data and API tools that connect its AI services with different functions across Naver’s platform. It also cited harness engineering, a set of technical safeguards designed to help AI services run reliably within its products.Naver said its next-generation HyperClova X, its Korean-language generative AI model, will be used across its services.Its AI Tab, an AI-powered search section that gives summarized and conversational answers, topped 3 million cumulative users within a month of its beta launch in April and will be rolled out to all users in June.Naver also plans to launch a new version of Smart Lens by the end of next month, allowing users to take photos, check information and move directly to related services.“Based on Naver’s unique assets that best understand the daily lives and context of Korean users, we will build AI agent services that go beyond search and help users take action,” said Kim Sang-bum, head of Naver’s search platform division.