[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] Kakao announced on the 2nd that it will convert the basic usage fee of the ‘Chatbot Service General Rate Plan’ to free. This is to enable business partners such as self-employed individuals and small business owners to actively utilize the chatbot service in their businesses.
A chatbot is a service that uses artificial intelligence (AI) within a chat window to communicate with users in a conversational format and automatically find the most accurate answers to user intents. Business partners can use the chatbot service based on the KakaoTalk channel they have established to assist their businesses in various ways such as customer consultation, reservations, product promotion and sales, and orders.
Users can make reservations or orders anytime and anywhere through a chatbot that is available 24 hours a day, and customer center chatbots that handle frequently asked questions and answers can significantly reduce phone connection delays. Currently, about 16,000 partners are using this type of chatbot, and the number is continuously increasing.
Currently, Kakao operates two types of chatbot services for partners using KakaoTalk channels: the general product and the Event API product. For the existing general product, 50,000 uses per month from the 1st to the end of the month were provided free of charge, and usage fees of 3 to 40 KRW per use were charged for any excess.
Starting from the 1st of next month, with the general product becoming free, anyone will be able to use the chatbot general product service without burden. The Event API rate product, which helps chatbots initiate conversations first by including informational or advertising messages such as notifications for specific events, will continue to be charged 15 KRW per message as before.
A Kakao official said, "We converted the general rate plan usage fee to free to support small and medium-sized businesses in optimizing the chatbot service for their own businesses and to activate the ecosystem by allowing more partners to experience the chatbot service." He added, "We plan to explore various win-win measures so that more business partners can use Kakao’s business solutions to achieve efficient business results."
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