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Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba has invested heavily in its fast-growing international business, as growth in its China-focused Taobao and Tmall businesses slows.
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BEIJING — Chinese e-commerce giant AlibabaGoogle’s international arm on Wednesday launched an updated version of its artificial intelligence-based translation tool that it says is better than products offered by Google, DeepL and ChatGPT.
This is based on an assessment of Alibaba International’s new model, Marco MT, by Flores translation frameworkthe Chinese company said.
Alibaba’s fast-growing international unit released the AI translation product as an update to a product unveiled about a year ago, which it says has already done so. 500,000 merchant users. Country-based sellers can use the translation tool to create product pages in the target market’s language.
The new version is based solely on large language models, allowing it to rely on contextual cues such as cultural or industry-specific terms, Kaifu Zhang, vice president of Alibaba International Digital Commerce, told CNBC Group and head of the company’s artificial intelligence initiative. in an interview Tuesday.
“The idea is we want this AI tool to improve merchant outcomes, because if merchants do well, the platform will do well,” he said.
Large language models power artificial intelligence applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which can also translate text. The models, trained on huge amounts of data, can generate human responses to user prompts.
Alibaba’s translation tool is based on its own model called Qwen. The product supports 15 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian.
Zhang said he expects “substantial demand” for the tool from Europe and the Americas. He also expects emerging markets to be an important usage area.
When users of Alibaba.com — a site for suppliers to sell to businesses — are categorized by country, developing countries account for about half of the top 20 active users of AI tools, Zhang said.
Chinese companies are increasingly seeking overseas growth opportunities, especially online retailers. Securities in PDD portfolioTemu, fast fashion seller Shein and ByteDance’s TikTok are among the recent entrants to the global market. Many China-based merchants also sell on Amazon.com.
Contextual clues
Since the launch of Alibaba the first version of its AI translation tool last fall, the company said merchants were using it to more than 100 million product references. Similar to other AI-based services, basic pricing charges merchants for the amount of translated text.
Zhang declined to share how much the updated version would cost. He said it was included in some service offerings for merchants wanting simple exposure to foreign users.
He believes that contextual translation increases the likelihood that consumers will decide to purchase. He shared an example in which a colloquial Chinese description of a slipper would have been off-putting to English-speaking consumers if it had only been translated literally, without understanding the implied meaning.
“The updated translation engine will make Double 11 a better experience for consumers through more authentic expression,” Zhang said, referring to the Alibaba-organized shopping festival that takes place every year on November 11.
Alibaba’s international operations include platforms such as AliExpress and Lazada, which primarily target Southeast Asia. The international unit reported sales growth of 32% to $4.03 billion in the quarter ended June compared to a year ago.
That contrasts with a 1% year-over-year decline in sales to $15.6 billion for Alibaba’s main e-commerce business, Taobao and Tmall, which has focused on China .
The Taobao app is also popular with Singapore consumers. In September, the app launched an AI-powered English version for users in the country.
Nomura analysts expect Alibaba’s international revenue to slow slightly to 29% annual growth in the quarter ended September, while operating losses narrow, according to an October 10 report . Alibaba has not yet announced when it will release its quarterly results.