[Edaily Reporter Lee So-Hyun ] “Rookie,” the autonomous delivery robot that has been crisscrossing Naver’s (NAVER(035420)) second headquarters, “1784,” delivering coffee, boxed lunches, and packages to employees, has taken its first “vacation” in four years.

This comes as the company overhauls the robot and its entire operating system ahead of the rollout of “Rookie 2,” its next-generation commercial model. Naver’s robot technology, which has accumulated data while operating at 1784, has recently expanded its reach to large mixed-use buildings in Japan, moving from in-house testing to the external commercialization phase.

According to the IT industry on the 13th, Naver temporarily suspended its robot delivery service within 1784 for two months, from last July through this month, to carry out a reorganization.

This marks the first time the service has been halted at Naver 1784, which was completed in 2022 as a robot-friendly smart building. During this period, Naver plans to review the existing Rookie operating environment and transition to Rookie 2, the commercial version, by the end of the year.

Rookie began full-scale operations in 2022 with the opening of 1784. When Naver employees order coffee or other items through the internal system, Rookie navigates throughout the building, uses the robot-exclusive elevator “Roboport” to move between floors, and delivers to meeting rooms and workspaces.

Naver Labs, Naver’s research and development (R&D) organization, has used Rookie over the past four years to provide five types of delivery services, including boxed lunches, coffee, packages, convenience store items, and documents. Employees have used the robot service a cumulative total of approximately 80,000 times.

With the service recently suspended, some employees have expressed frustration over the disappearance of robot-delivered coffee and supplies in meeting rooms and other areas. This demonstrates how the robot service has become an integral part of employees’ daily work routines over the past four years.

Dr. Florent Perronin of Naver Labs Europe recently emphasized the importance of robot services that deliver real value to users in an interview with Edaily, stating, “While its appearance may not be flashy, Rookie provides a useful service.”

Four Years of Pilot Testing at 1784… Expanding Versatility with ‘Rookie 2’

This suspension of operations goes beyond simple maintenance; it is a preparatory step for the transition to the next generation, “Rookie 2.”

Unlike the existing Rookie, which operates based entirely on cloud-based control, Rookie 2 adopts a hybrid structure that incorporates on-device localization technology. A key feature is its ability to enable individual robots to make their own decisions and perform tasks autonomously.

This change is intended to increase scalability, making the system easier to deploy not only in “robot-friendly buildings” like 1784—which were designed from the ground up with robot operations in mind—but also in general offices and commercial facilities. Naver plans to transition the robots at 1784 to Rookie 2 within the year, verify operational stability, and then roll them out sequentially to various environments both domestically and internationally.

Japanese Building That Used Hong Kong Robots Also Switches to ‘Rookie’… Commercialization Underway

The operational experience accumulated by 1784 has already begun to be utilized overseas.

Last month, Team Naver supplied “Rookie,” the multi-robot control system “ARC Brain,” digital twins, and the vision-based localization technology “ARC Eye” to “Tokyo Midtown Yaesu,” a large-scale mixed-use building in Tokyo, Japan. This marks the first instance of commercializing smart building technologies—refined at 1784—in external, general-purpose buildings.

Notably, Tokyo Midtown Yaesu had previously been operating “RICE,” a delivery robot developed by the Hong Kong-based robotics company Rice Robotics. According to industry sources, the company has completely replaced its existing delivery robots with Naver’s Rookie as a result of this project. This means that Naver’s robots have taken the place of foreign robots in a major Japanese mixed-use building where foreign robots were already in operation. This is seen as the result of the successful pilot program conducted over four years at the 1784 headquarters.

Naver also customized ArcBrain to suit the Japanese environment. The system was enhanced so that general building operators—not just robotics experts—could use it easily, and features were added to recognize new structures such as glass walls and escalators. Movement paths were designed to accommodate the local environment, which requires use of freight elevators, and ArcBrain was configured to integrate and control existing elevators and automatic doors.

In addition to “Tokyo Midtown Yaesu” in Japan—the first site to adopt the system—it is reported that inquiries about adopting Rookie robots are pouring in from various companies both in Korea and abroad.

A Naver representative stated, “Just as Naver’s DNA has been to transform complex and difficult technologies into services that anyone can easily use, our core goal with robot technology is also to lower the barriers to entry for users.” The representative added, “Based on the robot operation experience and know-how accumulated over the past four years at 1784, we will further advance our commercial robot services to help accelerate the integration of physical AI into everyday life.”