Purple Lexity, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) company, will launch an AI product search service targeting online malls in Korea in partnership with an artist company known as "Lee Jung-jae Company." Separately, a service that combines advertisements with related questions that appear during AI search will be introduced as early as the end of the year. It is a strategy to expand its business scope by using strong AI search capabilities as a weapon to earn additional profits, and when the service begins in earnest, it is expected to have a significant ripple effect on the domestic information technology (IT) industry.

"We will introduce an AI search service dedicated to shopping malls using PurpleLexity's application interface (API) 'Sonar' with an artist company," Morita Jun, CEO of PurpleLexity Asia Pacific (APAC), said in a recent interview with Maeil Economy.

Artist Company is an entertainment management company co-founded by actors Lee Jung-jae and Jung Woo-sung. It also operates a B2B platform service using big data and AI technology. In January, it merged with Artist United, an online advertising company, to expand its business area to content, advertising, and marketing.

Hwang Kyung-ju, CEO of Artist Company, said, "It will be a solution that can be used on a distribution platform or brand mall that operates its own mall," adding, "It is possible to search completely multimodal that recognizes text, color, and design in images, not just keyword matching." "There is also a difference in summarizing products with AI and extracting only key information by evaluating and analyzing tens of thousands of review data," he explained.

According to the company, the image recognition accuracy of the solution is currently 92%, and the text extraction accuracy is 95%. After conducting beta service in the third quarter of this year, the two companies will officially launch the service as early as this year.

It will be introduced as a service software (SaaS) subscription type targeting small and medium-sized shopping mall operators and will operate as a profit model that receives monthly subscription fees.

In the future, the goal is to upgrade to a super-personalized AI agent service that identifies the user's intentions and context and recommends the best products.

If you ask the shopping mall app, "Please recommend items that match the clothes you wore during your summer vacation last year," you can find pictures of last year's vacation stored on the user's mobile phone and analyze them to recommend hats and sunglasses that match them.

Starting with shopping mall search services, the two companies plan to introduce AI services that are specialized in online advertising, marketing, and entertainment.

PurpleLexity is also preparing to launch its own service, which combines ads with search results. CEO Jun said, "We are planning to introduce 'shop with pro' service to the world including Korea later this year or early next year." The service, which is currently operating in the United States, is not an answer from AI that comes out when a user asks a question, but a combination of advertisements with related questions that are exposed along with the answer.

The advertisement is displayed in the form of a "sponsor follow-up question," and the question is labeled as "sponsored" that the advertisement has been received. CEO Jun explained, "It is different from the existing search engine where products from advertising companies come out first," adding, "We will provide accurate information and prices without the impact of advertisements."

Purple Lexity's move is seen as part of efforts to secure cash cow that can generate additional revenue in addition to subscription services.

Starting with SK Telecom, Purple Lexity is taking a wide range of steps in the Korean market by collaborating with Korean companies such as NH Investment & Securities and BC Card. Collaboration with Samsung Electronics is also drawing attention. According to Bloomberg, Samsung Electronics and PurpleLexity are discussing installing PurpleLexity apps and assistance in Samsung Electronics products that will be released in the future such as Galaxy S26.

[Reporter Kim Tae Sung]