AI Search Engine from Alibaba Grows Apace
January 15, 2025
Prepared by a still-alive dinobaby.
The Deepseek red herring has been dragged across the path of US AI innovators. A flurry of technology services wrote about Deepseek’s ability to give US smart software companies a bit of an open source challenge. The hook, however, was not just the efficacy of the approach. The killer message was, “Better, faster, and cheaper.” Yep, cheaper, the concept which raises questions about certain US outfits burning cash in units of a one billion dollars with every clock tick.
A number of friendly and lovable deer are eating the plants in Uncle Sam’s garden. How many of these are living in the woods looking for a market to consume? Thanks OpenAI, good enough.
Now Alibaba is coming for AI search. The Chinese company crows on PR Newswire, "Alibaba’s Accio AI Search Engine Hits 500,000 SME User Milestone." Sounds like a great solution for US businesses doing work for the government. The press release reveals:
"Alibaba International proudly announces that its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered business-to-business (B2B) search engine for product sourcing, Accio, has reached a significant milestone since its launch in November 2024, currently boasting over 500,000 small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) users. … During the peak global e-commerce sales seasons in November and December, more than 50,000 SMEs worldwide have actively used Accio to source inspirations for Black Friday and Christmas inventory stocking. User feedback shows that the search engine helped them achieve this efficiently. Accio now holds a net promoter score (NPS) exceeding 50[1], indicating a high level of customer satisfaction. On December 13, 2024, the dynamic search engine was also named ‘Product of the Day’ on Product Hunt, a site that curates new products in tech, further cementing its status as an indispensable tool for SME buyers worldwide."
Well, good for them. And, presumably, for China ‘s information gathering program. Founded in 1999, Alibaba Group is based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. One can ask many questions about Alibaba, including ones related to the company’s interaction with Chinese government officials. When a couple of deer are eating one’s garden vegetables, a good question to ask is, “How many of these adorable creatures live in the woods?” One does not have to be Natty Bumpo to know that the answer is, “There are more where those came from.”
Cynthia Murrell, January 15, 2025
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