Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has pledged to spend more than $50 billion on artificial intelligence over the next three years.<\/p>\n
CNBC | Evelyn Cheng<\/p>\n
SHANGHAI \u2014 Chinese tech giant Alibaba<\/a> is already recouping its investment on artificial intelligence in the company’s e-commerce business, vice president Kaifu Zhang told reporters on Thursday.<\/p>\n The Chinese tech giant has bet big that AI<\/a> will generate returns despite market concerns<\/a> that companies are spending too much on the technology with little to show for it. Alibaba last month announced it will increase its spending on AI<\/a> and cloud infrastructure, after pledging in February<\/a> it would spend 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) over the next three years on the tech.<\/p>\n Zhang oversees e-commerce AI applications at Alibaba. Earlier in the day, he shared how the company has rolled out a range of AI tools<\/a>, from making search results more personalized to improving the accuracy of virtual clothing try-ons.<\/p>\n The presentation comes a day after Alibaba began presales for Singles Day, China’s biggest shopping event of the year that’s akin to Black Friday.<\/p>\n Zhang said preliminary testing has showed consistent results from AI, including a 12% increase in returns on advertising spend.<\/p>\n “It’s very rare to see double-digit changes” in such tests, he said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. Zhang predicted that thanks to AI integration, there would be a “very significant” positive impact on Alibaba’s gross merchandise volume during this year’s Singles Day shopping period, which centers on Nov. 11.<\/p>\n Alibaba’s China e-commerce unit remains the tech giant’s largest source of revenue<\/a>, with growth of 10% year-on-year in the quarter ended June 30 to the equivalent of $19.53 billion.<\/p>\n Despite lackluster Chinese consumer spending in the last few years, during the Singles Day period last year, research firm Syntun estimated 20.1% year-on-year growth<\/a> in sales to 1.11 trillion yuan for Alibaba’s Tmall,\u00a0JD.com\u00a0and PDD.<\/p>\n