Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba has invested heavily in its fast-growing international business as the growth of 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 AI-powered translation tool that it says is better than products offered by Google, DeepL and ChatGPT.
The Chinese company said this is based on an evaluation of Alibaba International's new model, Marco MT, through the Flores translation measurement framework.
Alibaba's fast-growing international unit has released its AI-based translation product as an update to one unveiled nearly a year ago, which it says already has 500,000 business users. Sellers based in one country can use the translation tool to create product pages in the language of their target market.
Kaifu Zhang, vice president of Alibaba's international group for digital commerce and head of the AI initiative, told CNBC that the new version relies only on large language models, allowing it to rely on contextual clues such as culture or industry-specific terminology. In an interview Tuesday.
“The idea is that we want this AI tool to help the bottom line for merchants, because if merchants do well, the platform will do well,” he said.
Large language models power AI applications like OpenAI's ChatGPT, which can also translate text. Models, trained on massive 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 “huge demand” for this tool from Europe and the Americas. Emerging markets are also expected to be an important area of use.
When users of Alibaba.com — a site for suppliers selling to businesses — are broken down by country, developing countries account for about half of the top 20 active users of AI tools, Zhang said.
Chinese companies are increasingly looking abroad for growth opportunities, especially e-commerce merchants. PDD HoldingFast-fashion seller Temu and Shein and ByteDance's TikTok are among the new entrants to the global market. Many traders based in China also sell Amazon.com.
Contextual clues
Since Alibaba launched the first version of its AI translation tool last fall, the company said merchants have used it for more than 100 million product listings. Similar to other AI-based services, Basic Pricing charges merchants the amount of translated text.
Zhang declined to reveal the cost of the updated version. It is included in some service packages for merchants who want simple exposure to overseas users, he said.
He argues that contextual translation makes it more likely that consumers will decide to purchase. He shared an example where a colloquial Chinese description of slippers would have alienated English-speaking consumers if only translated literally, without arriving at the implied meaning.
“The updated translation engine will make Double 11 a better experience for consumers due to more authentic expression,” Zhang said, referring to the Alibaba-led shopping festival held on November 11 every year.
Alibaba's international business includes platforms such as AliExpress and Lazada, which primarily target Southeast Asia. The international unit posted sales growth of 32% to $4.03 billion in the quarter ended June compared to a year ago.
This is in contrast to a 1% year-on-year sales decline to $15.6 billion for e-commerce major Taobao and Alibaba's Tmall, which focused on China.
Taobao is also very popular with consumers in Singapore. In September, the app launched an English version powered by artificial intelligence for users in the country.
Nomura analysts expect Alibaba's international revenues 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 announce its quarterly earnings.
