Naver Corp., South Korea’s dominant online portal, has made significant advancements in its AI-driven services, Papago and CLOVA Speech, showcasing the company’s commitment to enhancing linguistic capabilities and global competitiveness. The addition of Arabic translation capabilities to Papago, coupled with the introduction of a real-time streaming feature in CLOVA Speech, marks a comprehensive effort to cater to a broader audience and streamline communication across multiple platforms.
Papago’s support for Arabic in text, voice, and conversational translations—and plans to extend this to image translations—reflects Naver’s strategy to embrace the linguistic diversity of its global user base. By integrating the right-to-left writing system and expanding the service to 16 languages, Papago is poised to significantly improve its international appeal, particularly in sectors like diplomacy where Arabic plays a crucial role.
Concurrently, Naver Cloud’s launch of the real-time streaming feature for CLOVA Speech enhances its utility in environments requiring immediate voice-to-text conversion, such as live broadcasts and customer service operations. This AI-based service, already integral to automatic subtitle generation and call data analysis, now supports Korean, English, and Japanese for real-time subtitle generation, eliminating the need for manual transcription in live settings.
These developments are underscored by Naver Cloud’s strategic pricing adjustments, including a 40% reduction in costs for voice and speaker recognition services and the introduction of segmented fees. An added feature for assessing the accuracy of English pronunciation further exemplifies Naver’s dedication to improving communication efficiency and accessibility.
With Papago’s global monthly active users reaching 18.9 million—a 25% increase from the previous year—and the ongoing expansion of CLOVA Speech capabilities, Naver is solidifying its position as a leader in AI-driven linguistic and cloud computing services on the global stage.
