Alibaba excels in AI, but sees its “secondary” profits melt away

Chinese tech giant Alibaba has far exceeded its planned investments in artificial intelligence (AI), and “quick commerce” is also growing strongly, but this is taking a heavy toll on profitability. “Profit margins are secondary,” CEO Eddie Wu states firmly.

Shopping with an AI agent

Alibaba had initially announced plans to invest 380 billion Chinese yuan (51.9 billion euros) in AI over the next three years. The company now indicates that this amount will be exceeded, although no new target has been communicated. The company is seeing a sharp rise in demand for AI services, particularly in its cloud division, Alibaba Cloud.