Naver Webtoon’s byUs Brings Creator-Approved AI Stories to Fans

Naver Webtoon launched byUs, an AI story chat service built on webtoon intellectual property approved by the original creators, on Wednesday. The service drops readers into a series’ existing universe, lets them talk with its characters, and lets the conversation steer the plot.

byUs arrives on July 1, 2026, with two distinct experiences, a launch title, and a creator-consent rule. Naver Webtoon built byUs on the back of Character Chat, a lighter conversational service it has run since June 2024, and points to months of internal numbers showing that the chat format lifts engagement with the source titles.

Two Doors in One App

byUs runs on a single rule at the front door: every story has to be built on webtoon IP that the original creator has explicitly signed off on. Inside that gate, the service splits into two experiences. The “Original story” mode opens with an intro built on the source webtoon’s universe and character settings, then continues as users talk with the characters to build a new narrative. The “Fan story” mode drops familiar characters into new situations and relationships, with user-generated tools that let anyone write and share their own versions.

Naver Webtoon built a stack of features around the conversation to keep the story moving. “Recommended replies” and “autoplay” nudge the user forward when the chat stalls. “Snapshots” deliver images that match the moment. “Special cuts” hand out reward-style images as the user’s affinity with a character rises. Every one of those features runs on top of the same creator-approved IP backbone.

Job Change Log Steps In First

The first IP to land on byUs is Job Change Log, a Naver Webtoon title. Naver Webtoon picked it to open the lineup because of its established following. The series is the first of several planned for the service. More titles will follow the same creator-approved path.

Job Change Log gives byUs a built-in test bed. The series has a fan base that already follows serialized characters. Naver Webtoon framed the launch around bringing those readers into the chat format.

The pitch from Naver Webtoon is that webtoons are crossing from content to read into content to inhabit. The case is being made by Kim Shin-hyung, the company’s head of IP business. He positioned byUs as a way for fans to take part in and expand the universe of a series they already follow. The deeper goal, he added, is a cycle that deepens attachment to the original IP and stretches its life.

Webtoons are moving beyond content to ‘watch’ into an ‘interactive’ realm where fans directly participate in and expand the universe. Through byUs, we will help users rediscover the appeal of the originals and build a virtuous cycle that leads to deeper attachment to the IP and a stronger lifecycle.

Kim’s comment came in the company’s July 1 launch statement, as detailed in Naver Webtoon’s July 1 launch announcement for byUs. The lifecycle framing matters because most webtoon series see engagement peak and then taper; an interactive layer is one way to keep the IP active between seasons and beyond. Naver Webtoon has spent two years building evidence that interactive chat pulls readers back to the source material, which The Seoul Economic Daily previewed on June 20 as a “full-scale entry into the AI character chat market.” The July 1 launch is the public answer to that preview, with more titles to follow the same creator-approved path across the byUs lineup.

The Creator Gate Is the Whole Pitch

byUs is built around a single rule, and the rule is the product. Every story runs only on webtoon IP that the original creator has explicitly approved, according to Naver Webtoon’s AI chat plans before the byUs launch. The rule is a response to a string of controversies around AI character chat services that pulled characters and voices from copyrighted works without permission, and to the safety criticisms that followed Character.AI’s rollout in the United States.

A Naver Webtoon official told The Seoul Economic Daily that the service will run “only on official IP that has received the original creators’ approval.” The same official added that Naver Webtoon will “provide a safe chat experience without undermining the appeal of the original work.” The Character Chat service that preceded byUs went through a “Bias Test” of some 1,400 questions, per the same report, and the new AI chatbot is undergoing similar safety inspections.

The creator-approval gate is a contract. The safety inspection is a one-time check at launch. byUs runs against both gates, on top of an IP roster pre-cleared by the rights-holders. Zeta, the dominant AI character chat service on the Korean market, lets users build characters and worlds from scratch without pre-clearance.

Character Chat Already Ran the Numbers

Naver Webtoon did not launch byUs cold. The company has been running Character Chat, a lighter conversational version of the same idea, since June 2024.

According to The Seoul Economic Daily’s June 20 report, Character Chat passed 6 million cumulative domestic users through January 2026, and teens and 20-somethings made up 78% of total users. A separate Pulse report cited 3.35 million users and 70 million messages exchanged between users and the AI in an earlier reporting window. The two counts describe the same service at different reporting intervals.

The more important number for byUs is what happened to the original webtoons. Naver Webtoon tracked the Seol Hyo-rim Character Chat in January 2025. In the week after launch (Jan. 13 to Jan. 19, 2025), original-episode views by Character Chat users rose 97% versus the week before (Jan. 6 to Jan. 12, 2025), and payment amounts rose 44%.

A separate Pulse analysis of the same chatbot logged the same 97% lift in original views for Character Chat users, with a 29% rise in readers and a 22% lift in preview purchases, per Character Chat usage statistics and conversion data. For the Love chatbot from “+99 Reinforced Wooden Stick,” episode reads rose 77% and preview-related revenue rose 31%. Across two months of app activity, new webtoons viewed rose 32% versus the prior period, per Pulse. Every metric Naver Webtoon has reported on the source series moved up after a Character Chat launch.

• 6 million cumulative domestic Character Chat users through January 2026
• 78% of Character Chat users in their teens or 20s
• 97% rise in original-episode views (Seol Hyo-rim chatbot, week after launch)
• 44% rise in payment amounts (same window)
• 32% rise in new webtoons viewed over two months of app activity

A Korean AI Chat Market That Grew Up Fast

The market byUs is entering did not exist at this scale two years ago. AI character chat has been carried largely by Zeta, a service from AI startup Scatter Lab. Zeta lets users converse with AI characters based on worldviews they set, across categories like romance fantasy, school stories, and boys’ love. That open-ended format is the operational opposite of byUs’s creator-approved approach.

According to Mobile Index, Zeta’s monthly active users reached 1.4 million as of May 2026, up 89.8% from 737,727 in the same month a year earlier. A March report from WiseApp·Retail found Zeta beating ChatGPT to become the AI chatbot service used for the longest time in Korea; as of February, domestic smartphone users’ Zeta usage time was 113.41 million hours, more than double ChatGPT’s 50.47 million hours. Wrtn Technologies’ Crack came third at 9.88 million hours.

Zeta’s growth has been accompanied by repeated criticism over explicit content and copyright questions in the open-world format. The company markets byUs as licensed and gated, and as running on titles users already trust. Naver Webtoon has released Character Chat conversion data to back that framing.

What the Safety Story Has to Outrun

The shadow over every AI chat service in 2026 is a 2024 case in the United States. A 14-year-old boy died by suicide after having sexual conversations with a Character.AI chatbot. The case drew global attention to the safety of open-ended AI chat, particularly for minors. Character.AI responded by blocking open-ended chat for users under 18, as described in the safety policy that blocked open-ended chat for minors.

The Character Chat service that preceded byUs went through a “Bias Test” of 1,400 questions, per The Seoul Economic Daily, and the new AI chatbot is undergoing similar safety inspections. Naver Webtoon has not disclosed the full inspection framework for byUs. The company has, however, committed publicly that the service will only run on creator-approved IP.

• Recommended replies and autoplay to keep storylines moving
• Snapshots, situation-appropriate images for the moment
• Special cuts, reward-style images tied to affinity level
• Bias Test-style safety inspection, modeled on Character Chat’s 1,400-question check
• Creator-approved IP gate (each title must be signed off by the original rights-holder)

What remains untested at launch is whether the safety inspection holds up at scale, and whether the creator-approval gate keeps pace with new titles added to the lineup. Safety inspections run before launch. Creator-approval gates are signed contracts. Neither is enforced at runtime.

The launch lineup starts with Job Change Log, with more titles planned. Naver Webtoon exported the lighter Character Chat format to its Japanese service Line Manga in February 2026, and a Japan rollout for byUs itself has not been dated. For now, byUs runs on creator-approved IP, with the safety inspection in place and the Character Chat conversion data as the company’s main case. Naver Webtoon is asking readers to do the same thing they did for Character Chat, talk with characters, and spend more time in the original titles as a result. The first reading of byUs’s logs, when Naver Webtoon publishes them, will tell the company whether that pattern holds.