Alibaba to sell AI technology aimed at small- to mid-sized businesses
Alibaba International is following in the footsteps of other retail giants by developing an artificial intelligence platform for third-party use.
The China-based global e-commerce giant plans to debut an AI-powered conversational sourcing engine aimed at small-to-midsized businesses in September 2024. Designed specifically for business-to-business sourcing, the platform will synthesize information, interpret sourcing needs using natural language processing, match buyers with products and suppliers, and support seamless sourcing decision-making.
According to Alibaba, the new conversational sourcing engine has been fine-tuned using more than one billion product listings and retail learnings compiled from its own platforms and beyond. Highlights of the solution cited by Alibaba include:
- The AI-powered sourcing engine will focus on understanding natural language and transforming it into professional sourcing requests. It will be able to predict sourcing needs and provide suggestions as well as allow complex queries or full documents as inputs, which it will distinguish and respond to in natural language.
- Product listings data such as titles, descriptions, keywords, and pictures will be reorganized to enable direct, custom-made, and side-by-side comparisons.
Alibaba expands AI efforts
In November 2023, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group introduced its “Aidge” generative AI toolkit, with features including a virtual try-on tool for apparel and a 24/7 AI customer service capability. Since April 2023, Alibaba International says it has assembled an AI business team of 100 experts and continues to hire new members.
A number of other major global retailers have also launched their own AI platforms intended for use by the wider retail and supply chain industries. These include Chinese direct retailer JD Group, which utilized the Yanxi AI platform developed by its JD Cloud division to create an industrial version of the new AI-based open-source ChatGPT solution called JDChat, as well as the Amazon Bedrock managed generative AI solution from Amazon Web Services and the Route Optimization proprietary AI-based logistics solution from Walmart.
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"Traditional search engines evaluate web page importance through interlinking, credibility and ad spend," said Kuo Zhang, president of Alibaba.com. "In this AI era, the B2B sourcing engine offers an intuitive and organic way to query, as well as rapidly and accurately match business buyers and business sellers based on their proven track record."
