Kakao Unveils Vision for Mainstream AI at Upcoming ‘if(kakao)25’ Developer Conference

Kakao will host its annual developer conference, if(kakao)25, from September 23 to 25 at the Kakao AI Campus in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, the company announced on August 28. Marking its seventh year, the conference will run under the theme “Possibilities Become Everyday Realities,” highlighting Kakao’s strategy and progress in democratizing artificial intelligence.

The event will spotlight Kakao’s AI technologies—long a core focus for the company—as well as upcoming innovations on its flagship messaging platform, KakaoTalk. The opening day will feature a keynote by Kakao CEO Jeong Shin-a, who will unveil a major KakaoTalk overhaul, new AI-powered services, and a co-developed product with OpenAI.

Following the keynote, Chief Product Officer Hong Min-taek will outline the specific direction for KakaoTalk’s redesign, while Kim Byeong-hak, who heads the Kanana team, will present the development journey and achievements of Kakao’s proprietary Kanana model.

Day two will delve deeper into Kakao’s AI capabilities. Kim will return to share use cases of the Kanana model and outline the company’s approach to building agentic AI models. Lee Sang-ho, who leads AI Safety & Quality initiatives, will present Kakao’s efforts in AI ethics and safety. Meanwhile, Chief Technology Officer Jeong Gyu-don will report on the company’s year-long push toward becoming an “AI-native” organization.

The conference will also unveil new projects aimed at expanding Kakao’s AI agent ecosystem. These include on-device AI applications and PlayMCP, an open Model Context Protocol platform designed to enhance interoperability and personalization in AI systems.

The final day, September 25, is designated as “Krew Day,” a closed session for Kakao employees and affiliated developers to exchange insights and showcase internal innovations. Attendees at the venue will have the chance to interact with Kakao’s proprietary AI models, including the Kanana language model, multimodal systems, and video-generation tools.

Registrations for the conference are open from August 28 at noon through September 8 via the official if(kakao)25 website. Attendance will be determined through a lottery system. Keynote sessions will also be available via live stream.

The original article is available on Kakao’s newsroom.