Naver Officially Launches 'Clova Care Call'... AI Checks on the Well-being of Elderly Living Alone

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] Naver has officially launched the AI call service "CLOVA CareCall" for elderly people living alone and middle-aged single-person households. Since last year, Naver has been piloting CLOVA CareCall in areas such as Haeundae-gu in Busan, Seoul, Incheon, and Daegu, refining the service, and plans to expand the service in earnest with this official launch.

According to Naver on the 30th, CLOVA CareCall is a service where AI calls elderly single-person households in need of care to check on their well-being with topics such as meals, sleep, and health. It features Naver’s self-developed large-scale AI technology "HyperCLOVA," enabling free interaction like talking with a friend rather than fixed questions and answers, allowing not only simple health checks but also emotional care.

Naver’s speech synthesis and speech recognition engines are also integrated to provide a more natural conversational experience. Even before applying HyperCLOVA technology, CLOVA CareCall supported COVID-19 active monitoring by assisting in symptom checks for over two years starting from March 2020, helping frontline medical staff respond efficiently and promptly.

With the official launch of CLOVA CareCall, Naver has enhanced the call result management tools to improve service completeness. Local government officials can view the overall call status at a glance, including completed and unanswered calls, and quickly check responses containing discomfort in categories such as health, sleep, meals, exercise, and outings. Notably, calls unanswered for two consecutive weeks or responses suspected of containing unusual or emergency situations are specially marked for swift identification and action.

Naver plans to further advance CLOVA CareCall by introducing a feature in the third quarter of this year that extracts and remembers key information requiring continuous management from previous AI-user conversations and utilizes it in subsequent dialogues. This aims to increase the fun and intimacy of conversations by enabling the AI to remember past interactions.

The service coverage area will also be expanded. After starting beta service in Haeundae-gu, Busan in November last year, it has been introduced in Daegu, Incheon, and Seoul, and is currently being piloted in 20 local governments nationwide.

Jung Seok-geun, CEO of Naver CLOVA CIC, said, "With this official launch, we will further enhance service completeness and actively continue cooperation with local governments to expand the adoption of CLOVA CareCall nationwide."

Meanwhile, to celebrate the official opening of CLOVA CareCall, Naver released an experience video featuring theater actress Son Sook and biologist Professor Choi Jae-chun on the CLOVA AI Contact Center website.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.