ESTaid, a subsidiary of ESTsoft, operates the portal "Zum," which has been unable to break out of the 0% market share range in the domestic search market, and is now trying to rebound by prominently featuring artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
According to web log analysis site InternetTrend on the 12th, as of the 10th, Zum.com had a domestic portal market share of 0.08%, down 0.11 percentage points from the same period last year (0.19%). During the same period, Naver maintained its lead with a 58.82% share, followed by Google at 33.04%. Bing (4.13%) and Daum (3.00%) also recorded shares of 3-4%.
Zum recorded a market share in the 3% range until 2015 but continued to decline as it failed to adapt to the mobile era. It attempted to transition to a virtual asset portal in 2021, but that effort failed, and by the end of 2023, all related services, including CoinZum and Zum Investment, were discontinued. In March of last year, it changed its name from "Zum Internet" to "ESTaid" and announced a complete redesign of the portal under the leadership of CEO Kim Nam-hyun. At the time of the name change, Kim stated, "We will move toward an open portal where users and partners can enjoy the benefits of AI together."
This year, ESTaid has been focusing on introducing AI-based services to enhance its portal competitiveness. First, last November, they launched the "AI 1-Second Summary" feature, which provides responses in the form of summaries collected in real time from news, blogs, and communities based on user-entered search terms. The company explained that a "fake news detection" technology was also applied to select only reliable sources.
At the same time, they officially launched the "Investment Zum" service in partnership with Deep Search to provide information on ETFs and overseas stocks. This service is equipped with features that summarize key news of the components based on AI and compare and analyze themed ETFs, while automatically generating and providing the latest news about small and medium-sized overseas stocks in Korean every day.
In January, they launched the "AI Issue Trend," which provides keywords by analyzing real-time information trends, and in June, they added the "AI 5-Minute IssueCast," which features AI voice summary content. The company noted that this service adopted a multi-voice format similar to a radio show instead of a monotonous mechanical voice to enhance immersion.
The scope of services has also expanded from content-based to productivity tools. They began providing a free web office that allows users to view and edit various documents such as Hangul, Word, and slides directly from the Zum portal, following a strategic partnership with Polaris Office. This web office is equipped with the "AI Issue Trend," allowing real-time trend information to be checked during document creation.
Additionally, ESTaid is accelerating its expansion of AI-based financial content. In February, in collaboration with Deep Search and Bonanza Lab, it introduced the country's first "AI Virtual Asset Investment Information Service" for domestic portals. This service functions by comparing the prices of major virtual assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum with domestic and overseas markets and providing analysis of related news by AI.
However, despite integrating significant amounts of AI technology, the overall market share remains very low, and it is uncertain whether this will lead to a fundamental shift in traffic.
An ESTsoft official noted, "Although our market share is low in the existing portal market, a new type of AI search has emerged, presenting us with another opportunity for growth," and added, "Zum is expanding into a productivity-focused platform where various AI services can be experienced beyond simple information searches." They further elaborated, "Since the AI search service 'Ellen' and the Zum portal provide different utilities, they are being developed separately, and we are considering a long-term direction where the two can create synergies."