Imagine the feeling of a movie character speaking directly to you. As artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots evolve, once-fantastical scenarios are becoming reality. Beyond answering queries, AI can now mimic specific personalities and speech patterns, offering personalized interactions.
Naver Webtoon recently introduced “Character Chat,” enabling users to exchange messages with characters from their webtoons. When asked, “What should I do to be praised for living well?” the AI character of Jo Seok from “The Sound of Heart” replies with comforting words, “First, lie down, human. Take some leisure in life.” On exams concerns, the character jokes, “I passed the college entrance exam on my first try and got a perfect TOEIC score.” The AI mimics character tones and continue conversation like interacting with actual webtoon characters.
The feature, powered by Naver’s HyperCLOVA X large language model (LLM), enables AI to learn from webtoons for natural conversations. Naver Webtoon aims to increase user engagement and service value through Character Chat, which costs about 80 won per message.
The AI story platform “Zeta,” created by the South Korean generative AI startup Scatter Lab, has attracted over 160,000 users in just two months. Users can create AI characters and engage in role-playing scenarios during chats. The platform enables users to direct actions and describe psychological states through narrative commands, involving other characters in conversations to create personalized stories and enhance content immersion.
Emotion-based AI chatbots are gaining attention globally. U.S. startup Character.AI offers interactions with various characters from reality, games, and animations, remembering past conversations and leading new ones. Users can even group chat with figures like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. Industry experts predict that highly personalized services, like AI-assisted online shopping and content enjoyment, will become increasingly prevalent.
