A voice-powered concierge service called Clova — short for “Cloud Virtual Assistant” — is the centerpiece of the service, much like Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana and Google Assistant. Beyond the assistant living inside the main Line chat app, the company said it has plans to release hardware with support for Clova baked-in, as Amazon and Google have done, and work with third parties to integrate the service into additional hardware.
Also, interestingly, Line has acquired a majority stake in the Japanese company Vinclu which is behind a ‘holographic’ AI service. It will introduce Clova to the Line app and begin selling a Clova-powered smart speaker in Japan and Korea in “early summer.”
Initially the firm is developing Clova-related services itself — alongside parent firm Naver — but Line said it plans to open the AI platform for both software and hardware up to third parties in the future.
While an AI might help increase engagement with existing users, it doesn’t seem like a bridge to bring new users into the fold and that is among the key issues Line is currently grappling with.
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