Nol Universe to Develop KRW 5.1 Billion Travel-Specialized AI Agent
IT DAILY ·
✦ AI Summary
Nol Universe was selected as an implementing partner for the Ministry of Science and ICT- and NIA-run "Development and Fostering Support Project for High-Demand, High-Impact Representative AI Agents and Agent Tools."
The project will be carried out with a budget of about KRW 5.1 billion, and the development targets are a travel-specialized AI agent and 8 dedicated model context protocol (MCP) tools.
Nol Universe plans to complete development of the AI agent and the 8 MCP tools within this year and operate a results-utilization period through 2031.
Nol Universe has been selected as an implementing partner for a government-backed AI development project, paving the way for the development of a travel-focused AI agent and related tools. Nol Universe was chosen for the Ministry of Science and ICT- and National Information Society Agency (NIA)-run "Development and Fostering Support Project for High-Demand, High-Impact Representative AI Agents and Agent Tools," with the selection announced on the 18th.
The project will be carried out with a budget of about KRW 5.1 billion. The funding consists of a combination of government contributions and private-sector matching funds.
The development target is a travel-specialized AI agent. Through the government-backed project, Nol Universe will push ahead with the development of an AI agent tailored to the travel sector.
The project also includes 8 dedicated model context protocol (MCP) tools. MCP is a standard for connecting AI to external services and tools and calling required functions.
Nol Universe will also develop dedicated tools for linking external services and tools. Accordingly, it plans to build 8 MCP tools dedicated to connecting with the travel-specialized AI agent.
Through this project, Nol Universe plans to complete the AI agent development within this year and also finish development of the 8 dedicated MCP tools within this year. It then plans to operate a period for utilizing the results through 2031 and continue advancing the related technologies.
The project is tied to the growing trend of expanding AI features in travel services. Nol Universe launched the conversational search service "AI Nori" in December last year, and "AI Nori" offers recommendations for domestic accommodations and leisure products based on natural-language inputs of multiple conditions, including travel schedules, companions, budget, and key facilities. "AI Nori" surpassed 70,000 cumulative users within one month of launch.
In addition, the AI-based "Travel Itinerary" service launched in August last year and recorded more than 210,000 itinerary creations over about 6 months. The service provides personalized travel-course recommendations based on user preferences, as well as product recommendations, route management linked to maps, and linkage with flight and lodging reservation data. Through these services, Nol Universe has built recommendation and itinerary-generation capabilities and achieved usage results.
In June, Nol Universe announced plans to sequentially integrate its fragmented services across accommodation, flights, tours, leisure, and tickets into NOL. The company said it aimed to use this as an integrated foundation for a transition to an "AI travel agency."
As part of that implementation phase, the company outlined plans from September for the integration of NOL Interpark Tour into NOL and the integration of NOL Ticket into NOL, while also including a plan for the sequential combination of Triple. Kim Young-jin, CTO of Nol Universe, said the company plans to develop a travel-specialized AI agent that anyone can feel in daily life, based on its technology capabilities and travel infrastructure.
Source: IT DAILY · Kim Byung-joo
Original: https://www.itdaily.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=241036
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Source: IT DAILY
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