Alibaba has jumped on the AI-powered chatbot trend, currently being led by OpenAI’s ChatGPT – rattling the tech industry.
ChatGPT has riled up development of chatbot in China where it is currently unavailable. Alibaba is joining other Chinese companies such as web search giant Baidu to develop AI-powered chatbots that will be included in their tech services, in response to ChatGPT.
Alibaba said it is testing its chatbot internally in the company’s research institute Damo Academy, without providing further details.
Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 16 (Feb 10 – May 3, 2025) opens registrations; register today for early bird discounts.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations here.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and invest in Africa’s finest startups here.
“Frontier innovations such as large language models and generative AI have been our [focus] areas since the formation of DAMO in 2017,” an Alibaba spokesperson told CNN in a Thursday statement.
“As a technology leader, we will continue to invest in turning cutting-edge innovations into value-added applications for our customers as well as their end-users.”
Previously, Baidu had said it expects to complete testing of its chatbot dubbed “Wenxin Yiyan” in Chinese or “ERNIE Bot” its ChatGPT-like service, in March. But outside China, Google is also accelerating Bard, its chatbot that it announced days ago following the frenzy of ChatGPT.
Alibaba’s shares jumped 1.4% on Thursday morning in Hong Kong, following the news.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has set the public and industries on a frenzy since it was launched late last year. With a record 100 million users in just over two months, companies around the world are racing to develop and release their own AI-powered chatbot.
ChatGPT won hearts across all sectors with its ability to automatically develop human-like answers to queries, giving authentic answers to questions unlike search engines. The chatbot also writes essays, poems and codes, providing an automatic alternative to critical thinking.
With its ability, built on a large language model, ChatGPT has seen growing interest from investors and the public. But experts have warned that it cannot be trusted at this time, as it has the potential to spread misinformation.
However, its unprecedented growth poses a threat to web search giants like Google and Baidu. For Google, which dominates the online search industry, there is concern that the sudden rise of ChatGPT may significantly deplete its ad revenue in a few years. For Baidu, ChatGPT has prompted the Chinese web search giant to push its AI language model forward, creating the experience for millions of its Chinese users who don’t have access to ChatGPT.
Alibaba jumping the bandwagon underscores the influence of ChatGPT around the world. The ChatGPT Index, compiled by Shanghai-based data service provider Wind based on nearly 30 AI companies listed in mainland China, jumped over 16 percent in the past five trading days, according to SCMP.
Google’s Bard, expected to be rolled out in coming days in response to the swift rise of ChatGPT, flopped this week after it provided inaccurate information to a query during a public demonstration. The company lost as much as $100 billion on Wednesday as a result.
With the tense competition ChatGPT has created in incorporating chatbot into services, Microsoft has positioned itself to occupy a dominant position in the game. The tech giant has betted billions of dollars on OpenAI, with an aim to incorporate ChatGPT into Bing, its search engine. It has also incorporated ChatGPT into its Teams Premium.