Naver Announces First "Special Naver Mates"—Category Representatives Spotlighted by AI

Monthly Grants of 10 Million Won for Each Category’s Representative Creator

Naver announced the selection of this month's "Special Naver Mates"—outstanding creators in each category eligible for special funding of up to 10 million won—on July 15, as it continues the beta operation of its artificial intelligence (AI) fellowship program, "Naver Mate."

Naver Mate is an AI fellowship program that highlights around 3,000 user-generated content (UGC) creators every month based on factors such as the number of AI briefing citations, subject matter expertise, and activity level. The program aims to foster a high-quality content ecosystem by emphasizing expertise and diversity within specific themes.

Special Naver Mates document their experiences and know-how for one month as Naver Mates across ten categories, including travel, lifestyle, and tech. In each category, one "representative creator" and ten "outstanding creators" are selected. The representative creator in each category receives a basic activity stipend of 300,000 won plus an additional 10 million won per month, while each of the ten outstanding creators per category receives an additional 3 million won per month.

The ten representative creators for June's categories are as follows: ▲Nailedong: Japanese Travel Cafe (Travel), ▲Mangdi’s Food Log (Food), ▲MJ’s Quick Recipe (Recipe), ▲GO OUT CASUALLY DRESSED (Style), ▲Photographer Shinnam’s IT World (Tech), ▲Moms Holic Baby (Life), ▲Old Spice Eumse (Culture), ▲Boonunsaram (Media), ▲Recording Investment Notes (Insight), and ▲Game Info (Hobby)—one per category. Additionally, the 100 outstanding creators, eligible for a monthly special grant of 3 million won, were also disclosed, with ten outstanding creators chosen in each of the ten categories.

Lee Ilgoo, Executive Director of Content Services at Naver, stated, "Together with the Naver Mates, we are seeking various ways to further invigorate the UGC ecosystem, which now holds even greater value in the AI era as it contains people's experiences and insights. We will continue our efforts to enhance creators’ influence and prestige, including through initiatives like the newly announced Special Naver Mate."

Meanwhile, on July 1, the list of "Naver Mates" active this month was also released. As with the previous month, the Naver Mate lineup is diverse, ranging from established to new creators, and consists of approximately 3,000 creators.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.