By Senad Karaahmetovic
Shares of Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) are about 2.5% higher in pre-open Wednesday trading after a report in the Securities Times said the company is developing its own artificial intelligence (AI) service akin to OpenAI-made ChatGPT.
The AI product is currently in the testing phase, the report noted. It also said that Alibaba could potentially combine its AI technology with DingTalk productivity tools. DingTalk is an intelligent working platform created by the e-commerce business with the goal of achieving higher working efficiency.
The report comes after Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) shares soared over 12% yesterday after the internet giant said it plans to complete testing of its own ChatGPT-like bot in March. The AI race is booming after OpenAI’s ChatGPT became one of the fastest-growing internet apps ever following the November launch.
“The AI race is clearly on for the tech sector, with multiple new competitive AI products launching and search integration in a short period of time post-ChatGPT’s launch on 11/30/22. Speed may be important for scale as the models are learning models,” Bank of America analysts wrote in a note sent to clients this week.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) invested an additional $10 billion in OpenAI while also working to incorporate OpenAI technologies into its own products, including the search engine Bing.
In the meantime, Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is due to hold its own AI-focused event today after announcing an AI chatbot “Bard” on Monday.