Kakao Prepares Launch of Kanana 2.5, 150-Billion Parameter AI Agent Model

May 8, 2026

Kakao is preparing to unveil Kanana 2.5, a 150-billion-parameter large language model designed for AI agents, to bring personalized AI services to KakaoTalk's 50 million users. The company completed its proprietary Kanana tokenizer in 2025, which reduces training costs by up to 40 percent and improves inference speed by up to 60 percent. Kakao reported record first-quarter operating profit of 211.4 billion won ($145.7 million) in January-March 2026, up 66 percent year-over-year.

Kanana 2.5 model specifications

▪Kakao's Kanana 2.5 performs better than domestic and overseas large language models of similar parameter size on base-model benchmarks.
▪Kakao's Kanana 2.5 has less than 10 percent of the parameter count of major global models.
▪Kakao's Kanana 2.5 was developed from scratch for an agent AI platform.
▪Kakao's Kanana 2.5 is a 150-billion-parameter large language model designed for AI agents.

Proprietary tokenizer technology

▪The Kanana tokenizer can reduce training costs by up to 40 percent compared with existing tokenizers.
▪Kakao completed its proprietary Kanana tokenizer in 2025.
▪The Kanana tokenizer offers the strongest Korean-language compression efficiency among publicly disclosed Korean and overseas models while maintaining English-language processing performance.
▪Korean can require 1.5 to three times more tokens than English to express the same meaning when processed through general-purpose tokenizers.

KakaoTalk AI agent strategy

▪Kakao has designed its AI agent system using on-device AI models and partnerships so that costs do not scale one-for-one with user growth or engagement.
▪Kakao is preparing AI agent services and models on the assumption that all 50 million KakaoTalk users will be onboarded.
▪Kakao is preparing to unveil Kanana 2.5 to bring personalized AI services to users of KakaoTalk.

First-quarter earnings results

▪CEO Chung Shin-a spoke on May 6, 2026 during Kakao's first-quarter earnings call.
▪Kakao reported consolidated operating profit of 211.4 billion won ($145.7 million) in the January-March 2026 period, up 66 percent from a year earlier.
▪Kakao's January-March 2026 operating profit and revenue were record highs for a first quarter.
▪Kakao reported revenue of 1.94 trillion won in the January-March 2026 period, up 11 percent year-over-year.