As 'Agentic Commerce'--where artificial intelligence (AI) goes beyond product recommendations to induce purchases--spreads, overcoming 'platform passing' has become a hot topic in the retail and platform industries. To counter AI replacing portals and shopping malls, platform companies such as Naver and Kakao are strengthening their own ecosystems, while the retail industry is pursuing AI-native strategies.
The platform camp has entered a battle to protect its leadership. Naver is focusing on binding its search, shopping, and payment into one to prevent users from leaking elsewhere. A shopping-exclusive AI agent and the AI search 'AI Tab' are the core pillars. Kakao, conversely, opened its doors. Its method is to add AI agents 'Kakao Tools' and 'ChatGPT for Kakao' to KakaoTalk to bring in external services such as Musinsa and Olive Young.
To respond to platform passing, retail companies are upgrading their own AI while moving toward closer collaboration with tech giants. The former involves upgrading shopping personalization and recommendation services to maintain customer influx into their own malls. CJ Olive Young introduced a search that finds products as if talking to a dedicated AI that learned customer reviews, and Coupang is embedding generative AI into the product search stage. Musinsa implemented conversational recommendations based on its own commerce interface, 'Musinsa MCP'.
Basic strategic designs for an AI-native transition are also active. While accelerating the artificial intelligence transformation (AX), they are also pursuing different search strategy approaches. This is because it has become clear that traditional search engine optimization (SEO), which ranks products at the top of search results, is insufficient to respond to the AI era. The retail industry is turning its eyes to answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) to ensure their products are recommended and cited in answers provided by AI, accelerating the shift of everything from data to content toward an AI-oriented focus.
Collaboration with major AI powerhouses also continues. Lotte Chilsung Beverage, LF, and Ottogi have launched dedicated ChatGPT applications (apps). They are focusing on attracting AI users to their companies by opening dedicated stores within generative AI platforms.
“As the consumer power of the retail industry shifts from hypermarkets to e-commerce, and now from platforms to AI, routine consumption will be replaced by AI,” said Seo Yong-gu, professor of business administration at Sookmyung Women's University. Seo added, “In an era where survival depends on being chosen by AI algorithms, the retail industry is facing a new challenge, and those who fail to adapt will be left behind.”
