BEIJING: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd plans to release an agentic artificial intelligence (AI) service for companies, banking on national enthusiasm around AI assistants like OpenClaw that help users perform actual tasks.
The Chinese company may announce the new AI agent product, based on its flagship Qwen model and tailor-made for enterprises, as soon as this week, people familiar with the matter said.
The company plans to gradually integrate other services with the agent, including online shopping site Taobao and financial technology platform Alipay, the people said, asking to remain anonymous discussing private plans.
The tool was developed by the team that runs Alibaba’s Slack-like DingTalk platform, the people added.
Alibaba’s latest product underscores its steady investment in a panoply of AI services, as well as a recognition of the explosive popularity of agentic AI like OpenClaw that can help buy items or manage email.
The newly created enterprise AI tool can help firms operate computers, browsers and cloud servers, though with built-in features to safeguard data security, the people said.
It’s unclear how Alibaba is going to charge enterprises for the product, or the extent to which it will integrate existing in-house services at the outset.
Alibaba, which is set to report quarterly earnings on Thursday, is grappling with questions about its AI strategy following the sudden departure of one of its star developers.
Chief executive officer Eddie Wu promised over US$53bil of investment in AI last year, after announcing artificial general intelligence as the company’s primary goal.
It’s since experienced triple-digit growth in AI-related businesses – though off a low base. Alibaba had mostly focused on enterprise-facing AI and cloud computing solutions before revamping its Qwen app last year for consumers.
This month, it also became one of the first Chinese tech firm to introduce an OpenClaw app for smartphone users. — Bloomberg
