For many, Alibaba (NASDAQ:BABA) is essentially the Chinese equivalent of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). That’s not too far out of line, really, as the two share several key similarities. Now, Alibaba is out to differentiate itself by joining the AI arms race. The news was sufficient to catch investors’ interest, as they pushed shares higher in Thursday afternoon’s trading.
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Alibaba has been working on an artificial intelligence chatbot similar in nature to ChatGPT since February. Now, by the end of this month, the service should go live and be available for consumers to use. Chinese news source Pandaily noted that Alibaba’s version of ChatGPT was already found in the Tmall Genie smart speaker app, suggesting that all it needed was a formal activation to kick in. Alibaba won’t be the only one, either; both Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) and JD.com (NASDAQ:JD) have either announced or released their own versions of chatbots with AI backing.
A report from Benzinga suggests that April 11 will feature Alibaba launching a “large-scale model” of its chatbot during the 2023 Cloud Summit in Beijing. Still, there’s a lot of time for it to make its formal debut, so it’s a space worth watching. With most of its major competitors planning a rollout of their own versions soon, Alibaba will need to get in on the action or risk losing ground—and market share—to the others in the field.
Nevertheless, Alibaba enjoys incredible analyst support. With 19 Buy recommendations, BABA stock is considered a Strong Buy. Plus, with an average price target of $149.74, it also comes with 46.46% upside potential.
