{"slug": "kakao-upgrades-kanana-o-ai-to-express-emotions-accents-via-text-prompts", "title": "Kakao upgrades Kanana-o AI to express emotions, accents via text prompts", "summary": "Kakao, the operator of KakaoTalk, has upgraded the voice generation technology in its omni AI model Kanana-o, allowing users to control tone, speed, emotions, and accents through natural-language text prompts. The update, announced on Kakao's tech blog on Tuesday, enables instructions like 'read it in a sad voice' or 'read it in a Gyeongsang Province accent,' and can combine multiple instructions. The model, trained primarily on Korean data, can also follow role-based instructions such as 'like a sports broadcast' or 'like a news anchor.'", "body_md": "Kakao, the operator of Korea’s dominant messaging app KakaoTalk and a major digital services ecosystem, has upgraded the voice generation technology in its proprietary omni artificial intelligence (AI) model, Kanana-o. The update allows users to fine-tune tone, speed, emotions and accents through simple natural-language instructions alone. According to a post on Kakao's tech blog published Tuesday, the improved model lets users shape how speech is delivered — not just what is read aloud — by giving instructions such as \"read it very quickly,\" \"read it in a low voice,\" \"read it in a sad voice\" or \"read it in a Gyeongsang Province accent.\" The AI adjusts speed, volume, pitch, emotion, intonation and intensity accordingly. The model can also follow role-based instructions, such as reading \"like a sports broadcast,\" \"like a news anchor\" or \"like a storybook,\" and can combine multiple instructions at once — for example, \"lower the tone and read it quickly in a sad voice.\" Kakao said that although the model was trained primarily on Korean-language data, it can follow the same kinds of", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/kakao-upgrades-kanana-o-ai-to-express-emotions-accents-via-text-prompts", "canonical_source": "https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/companies/20260804/kakao-upgrades-kanana-o-ai-to-express-emotions-accents-via-text-prompts?utm_source=rss", "published_at": "2026-08-04 06:07:03+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-04 06:10:15.845906+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "large-language-models", "generative-ai", "natural-language-processing"], "entities": ["Kakao", "KakaoTalk", "Kanana-o"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/kakao-upgrades-kanana-o-ai-to-express-emotions-accents-via-text-prompts", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/kakao-upgrades-kanana-o-ai-to-express-emotions-accents-via-text-prompts.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/kakao-upgrades-kanana-o-ai-to-express-emotions-accents-via-text-prompts.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/kakao-upgrades-kanana-o-ai-to-express-emotions-accents-via-text-prompts.jsonld"}}