[Why&Next] Korea Focuses on 'Search', China on 'Action'... Why Shopping AI Assistants Differ

As shopping platforms increasingly adopt AI assistant (AI Agent) features to enhance shopping convenience, China's AI ecosystem-which enables the entire shopping process from product recommendations to payment on behalf of users-is drawing significant attention.

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On April 24, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) analyzed that the capabilities of AI assistants embedded in Chinese shopping platforms have evolved beyond product search, now handling the entire process including payment and delivery. The report noted that China's leading consumer platforms are taking the lead in the agentic commerce race. Chinese lifestyle platform Meituan, for example, launched its AI assistant "Xiaomei" at the end of last year, which automatically performs product recommendations, reservations, payments, and delivery tracking on behalf of users. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, starting this year, has enabled its proprietary AI model "Qwen" to autonomously execute tasks such as food ordering and in-chat payments for users.

Korean platform companies are also actively entering the agentic commerce market. However, unlike China's AI assistants that automate the entire shopping cycle from product recommendations to payment, Korean platforms remain at the stage of providing personalized recommendations based on conversations with users. When users enter product keywords, the shopping AI agent summarizes, compares, and analyzes product reviews, but the user is ultimately required to complete the transaction themselves.

Since February, Naver has been offering the beta version 1.0 of its shopping AI agent service in digital, living, and lifestyle categories through its AI shopping app, Naver Plus Store. Naver plans to add features such as real-time trend analysis, automatic related product recommendations, and shopping cart integration in the future. Kakao has also integrated reservation and gifting functionalities into its AI agent "Kanana in KakaoTalk (KainTalk)." Retailers such as Lotte Himart are piloting shopping agents like "Habi," indicating that the distribution industry is also entering the AI agent service space.

The differences in the capabilities of AI assistants arise from the underlying shopping infrastructure. In China, shopping platforms such as Alibaba and Meituan operate as "super apps," integrating multiple areas including shopping, payment, and logistics within a single platform.

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For Meituan, the entire process-from product recommendations and reservations to payment and delivery tracking-is completed within a single platform. Alibaba’s AI assistant "Qwen" also coordinates tasks seamlessly across services like Taobao (shopping), Alipay (payment), and Amap (maps) within Alibaba’s ecosystem. Integrated payment systems such as Alipay and WeChat Pay further support the automation capabilities of AI assistants in daily life. This infrastructure provides the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) necessary for AI to manage the entire shopping process without interruption.

In contrast, Korea faces challenges in real-time integration of user login status, payment information, and delivery systems. The industry explains that it is difficult to establish systems that automatically manage and update inventory for listed products, and privacy regulations make it hard to maintain automatic login status. Since reauthentication is required at each payment stage, there are also practical limitations to implementing automated payment processes.

Currently, Naver and Kakao have set agentic commerce as their ultimate goal and are focusing on product recommendation services. A Naver spokesperson explained, "We are designing an overall structure that automates the process from search to payment using our services such as Naver Pay," adding, "We are concentrating on perfectly implementing the stages up to product recommendations and adding items to the shopping cart." While Kakao’s AI assistant cannot yet perform payments automatically, Kakao has recently updated its KainTalk program to enable payments within the platform.

Believing that the competitiveness of agentic commerce lies in a unified infrastructure, Google and OpenAI are also focusing on securing shopping ecosystems where AI assistants can operate. Google is developing the Agent Payment Protocol (AP2) and is collaborating with over 60 organizations, including PayPal and Mastercard, to create a payment system that AI assistants can use to conduct transactions autonomously. OpenAI, for its part, has developed the Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP), a common language that allows AI to communicate with participating store systems, enabling the AI to review products across malls, manage the user’s shopping cart, and complete payments.

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