What Alibaba’s New AI Deployment Means For its Tech Growth
The international arm of Alibaba Group is committing itself further to digital transformation by deploying a new AI application.
Its new deployment is designed to help merchants on its international wholesale platforms and various third-party marketplaces buy and sell goods online. Alibaba’s International Digital Commerce Group (AIDC) aims to make an AI-powered conversational sourcing engine available from September 2024 to simplify global business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce.
The new AI-driven sourcing tool will be accessible through a mobile app and Alibaba’s official website, the company says. A sourcing professional will simply be able to communicate via their voice with the tool. This then helps the user streamline how a buyer is matched with suitable products and suppliers under the platform.
A new generation of sourcing
The new AI-powered sourcing engine is built with Alibaba’s extensive knowledge in helping source goods around the world. According to the company, data collected from roughly one billion product listings was used to train the service and could be used by buyers to predict future sourcing requirements.
This initiative is managed by Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group (AIDC), whose operations also include international online shopping service AliExpress. The organisation states that it has formed a team of more than 100 employees to work on its AI business team and is looking to expand.
“Our AI-powered conversational sourcing engine will further supercharge the growth of Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group by transforming the way tens of millions of global small and medium-sized enterprises operate within the US$20tn B2B e-commerce industry,” says Alibaba President Zhang Kuo.
“The sourcing engine will also be used outside Alibaba's ecosystem for merchants on third-party platforms.”
This news from Alibaba aims to disrupt a very manual sourcing process. Instead of going through large amounts of information to locate suppliers, AI can work to speed up this process.
It highlights how e-commerce remains a priority for the company, as it seeks to keep up with competitors - particularly those in the People’s Republic of China. Whilst it holds a strong cloud infrastructure business, it seeks to expand its software-as-a-service offerings.
Alibaba Chairperson: We’re “all in” on AI
With a refined commitment to AI in recent months, Alibaba’s technology continues to fuel its cloud growth. It is renowned for its Alibaba Cloud platform which is designed to help enterprise customers to harness the power of generative AI (Gen AI).
The platform has also launched a new serverless cost-efficient solution for AI model deployment and inference to both individuals and enterprises to make it easier for businesses to build their own customised Gen AI applications.
More broadly, Alibaba continues its global expansions as a result to catch up with its US tech competitors, with chairperson Joe Tsai confident in the decision.
“AI is too important of an area where you cannot just take one path,” he said during J.P. Morgan’s 20th annual Global China Summit in May 2024.
“We’re the only company [in China] that both runs a leading cloud business and is competitive in AI,” he adds. “The combination of AI and cloud is important. “Fundamentally as a technology company and as a pioneer in technology, we believe in the continuous advancement of machine intelligence and that machines will get smarter and smarter.
“We just see so much upside to AI… and that’s why we’re all in.”
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