Retail Express
Alibaba’s ‘Aidge’ AI suite simplifying digital commerce challenges
2023-11-10
Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, has unveiled the pilot launch of ‘Aidge’ – a comprehensive, commerce-focused AI suite of application programming interfaces (APIs). This platform is designed to optimise global operations for enterprises, simplifying complex challenges encountered by businesses in today’s digital world. Aidge, which stands for “AI for Digital and Global Entrepreneurship,” leverages Alibaba International’s proprietary large language models and computer vision models, which have been trained on the company’s insights into global e-commerce dynamics. This foundation empowers Aidge to elevate business performance and drive down operational costs for enterprises.
Kaifu Zhang, Vice President of Alibaba International, who leads the company’s AI initiatives, emphasized the numerous challenges faced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the global commerce arena. These challenges encompass language and cultural barriers, high marketing costs, talent shortages, and more. Zhang stated, “Our newly introduced AI suite, ‘Aidge,’ is dedicated to simplifying global operations for SMEs, addressing their needs in areas such as content localisation, customer service, and marketing, with the aim of enhancing conversion rates and operational efficiency.”
Throughout the pilot phase, Alibaba International will test over 15 APIs in collaboration with interested software as a service (SaaS) partners and independent service vendors (ISVs).
Aidge’s capabilities span features like, Consumer Insights: In-depth analysis of customer feedback and extraction of selling points. Content Localisation: Adaptation of product content, spanning text and images. Customer Service: Multilingual live chat, shopping assistant chatbot, and customer service chatbot. Design: A variety of design templates for marketing creatives and product exhibits. Marketing: Automated search engine optimisation and marketing message generation.
Aidge also introduces several AI agents, offering support in sales conversion, customer inquiries, request management, and search engine optimisation. These agents have already been deployed on e-commerce platforms operated by Alibaba International.
Daraz, a South Asian e-commerce platform, is among the participants in the pilot testing of Aidge. They plan to enhance their Daraz Instant Message feature using Aidge’s AI capabilities. This will facilitate efficient communication between buyers and sellers through AI-generated prompts, with further integration of Aidge’s AI features planned in the near future.
Aidge is rolling out its services to merchants on Alibaba International’s e-commerce platforms and intends to expand its reach to more SMEs through collaborations with SaaS partners. A staged rollout by region is expected to begin by the end of 2023.
