[Edaily Reporter Lee So-Hyun ] Kakao(035720)is preparing a membership program that bundles its services and benefits. Going beyond simple discounts and reward points, the program connects service usage primarily through KakaoTalk, and it remains to be seen whether it will serve as a foundation for expanding agentic artificial intelligence (AI) and subscription monetization in the future.

According to the IT industry on the 2nd, Kakao is preparing a membership service that links various services and benefits.

Industry sources suggest a plan to bundle benefits from major services, including KakaoT (taxi), Melon (music), KakaoPage (webtoons and web novels), shopping, and kakaopay.

Kakao’s affiliate services already operate their own subscription and membership systems. Kakao Mobility operates “Kakao T Members,” a monthly subscription service that offers discounts and reward points for taxis, navigation, bikes, and travel, while Melon also provides user benefits based on recurring payment plans. It remains to be seen whether Kakao will consolidate these scattered benefits from each service into a single, Kakao-wide system. However, the specific participating services and pricing have not yet been finalized.

A key point of interest is the overlap with Kakao’s recently unveiled Agent AI strategy. Kakao CEO Jeong Shin-ah announced during a recent second-quarter earnings conference call that the company plans to expand AI agents into everyday areas—starting with food delivery and moving into commerce, reservations, travel, and payments. With Coupang Eats, its first external partner, Kakao is preparing an Agent-to-Agent (A2A) integration that allows users to proceed from menu recommendations to ordering and payment directly within KakaoTalk conversations.

If Kakao Membership serves to bundle these services, it is expected to expand into a structure where benefits are provided within KakaoTalk—which has 50 million users—and AI recommends services tailored to user intent before facilitating actual transactions.

Another key point to watch is the potential for monetization through AI subscriptions. Kakao plans to increase the number of monthly active users for AI services within KakaoTalk to 10 million by the end of this year and begin full-scale monetization starting next year through transaction fees, AI subscriptions, and new forms of AI advertising. The company aims to grow AI-related revenue to account for a double-digit percentage of TalkBiz’s total revenue by 2028.

If Kakao bundles its various services into a single benefits system to increase usage frequency and links this to AI recommendations and transactions, the membership program could serve as the “glue” that binds the agentic AI ecosystem together.

Its points of differentiation from competitors are also drawing attention. Since Naver and Coupang have secured a leading position in the membership market by highlighting strong core benefits—shopping for Naver and delivery for Coupang, respectively—the key question for Kakao is whether it will go beyond simply bundling various services to offer differentiated benefits that users can truly experience.

Kakao explained, “We are preparing a membership service that integrates Kakao’s various services and benefits,” adding, “The launch date and specific details are yet to be determined.”