Kakao Reveals Results of AI-Native Transformation Experiment… Developer Productivity Improved by Up to 100%

Kakao presented the perspective of utilizing LLMs as an OS, rather than competing to develop LLMs in-house, as a survival strategy for developers in the AI era. While developing LLMs in-house has transformed into national-scale infrastructure competition, with companies like Meta and Tesla building data centers that consume power in gigawatts, the argument is that true value-added is created by applications and services that solve specific industry problems on top of this infrastructure.

From this perspective, Kakao attempted an AI-native transformation to change the way developers work itself. In the initial experiment, one developer completed a fishing log app prototype in just one week using only AI tools. Subsequently, by introducing AI into the legacy code and collaboration environment of actual operational projects, they quantitatively confirmed a productivity improvement of an average of 50% to a maximum of over 100%.

The AI Mileage program, introduced for company-wide adoption, provided developers with mileage worth USD 120 per month, allowing them to freely subscribe to desired AI tools such as Cursor and Claude Code. As a result of the three-month pilot operation, preferences shifted from the GUI-based Cursor to the terminal-based Claude Code, capturing an inflection point where the development paradigm is transitioning from 'AI assistance' to 'AI delegation'.

However, it was pointed out that productivity improvements in the coding stage alone have limitations in improving overall project speed. Even if coding productivity improves by 100% in a project where coding accounts for 50% of the work, the effect on shortening the overall schedule is only 25%, as new bottlenecks occur in other stages such as code reviews or external negotiations. Accordingly, it was recommended to simultaneously pursue maximizing productivity in individual roles and innovating the entire workflow.