AIibaba Focuses on Agentic Commerce as AI Spending Balloons
Alibaba is focusing on agentic commerce innovations as it spends heavily on artificial intelligence. The Chinese tech giant shared quarterly earnings results Thursday (Aug. 20) that showed revenue up 9% for the year, while its AI investments drove a 75% decline in net income. External revenue from Alibaba’s cloud business was up 45%, while AI-related […] The post AIibaba Focuses on Agentic…
Alibaba is increasingly focusing on agentic commerce innovations while investing heavily in artificial intelligence. The company reported a 9% year-on-year revenue growth, but its AI investments led to a 75% drop in net income. Alibaba's cloud business saw a 45% increase in external revenue, while AI-related product revenue grew by a triple-digit percentage for the 12th consecutive quarter.
CEO Eddie Wu explained that the company's full-stack AI strategy gives it a competitive edge in capturing demand for AI and AI compute. Alibaba's capital expenditures, including AI infrastructure investments, surged 75% to 67.7 billion yuan (approximately $10 billion). The company's proprietary technology is transforming shopping habits and merchant operations, with 250 million users having experienced AI-driven shopping using the Qwen model.
Wu highlighted opportunities for AI on both supply and demand sides of eCommerce, including AI-powered experiences like multimodal search and virtual try-ons. On the supply side, merchants are widely adopting AI in their operations, and Alibaba aims to enhance merchant capabilities through AI. The company also plans to launch AI agents tailored for eCommerce scenarios.
Alibaba's AI investment strategy differs from pure-play AI companies, as it involves chips, cloud infrastructure, and AI models.
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