- Alibaba’s international department unveiled its new AI-based translation tool and claimed it to be powerful and surpass Google, DeepL, or ChatGPT.
- The product, called Marco MT, needs large language models; it supports 15 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Ukrainian.
- Kaifu Zhang, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group Vice President, said that the tool is designed to benefit merchants; merchant success would automatically promote platform growth.
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A benchmarking framework, as proposed by Flores, has established that its Marco MT has done better than other alternative products. Earlier tools used small language models and, hence, needed help grasping the cultural and industry-related nuances flavoring most translations. Zhang says this tool can enrich the transcreation contextually, increasing the chances of getting customers engaged and converted. For example, it can interpret colloquial expressions better so that the native speaker can connect with them better, hence making the description more appealing.
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Contextual clues
Since Alibaba’s translation tool has been available for a year, half a million merchants have used the tool to translate over 100 million listings, thereby tapping into new markets. The tool helps sellers create local product pages, opening up their global engagement channels. Zhang believes this new Ai translation tool will be in great demand in markets such as Europe and America, while newly emergent markets also have terrific potential. He says that half of the top 20 most active users of the AI tool on Alibaba’s business-to-business marketplace, Alibaba.com, come from developing countries.
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The translation tool is based on Alibaba’s proprietary AI model, Qwen. With this rising interest in AI tools on the global platform, Alibaba believes this product is one of the enormous helpings through which its merchants can access even broader markets. Alibaba did not release pricing details for the new version of the tool. Still, it is part of some service packages targeted toward merchants who want more international visibility. Zhang emphasized that it has a significant effect on consumer decisions. For example, Alibaba’s annual Double 11 shopping extravaganza on November 11 provided a better experience through even more realistic descriptions of the products themselves.
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Alibaba said the sales of its international arm -AliExpress and Lazada- had jumped 32% from a year earlier to $4.03 billion in the quarter that ended in June. Meanwhile, revenue at Alibaba’s core China-facing platforms, Taobao and Tmall, declined 1% to $15.6 billion. As the company continues expanding overseas, its ambitions now range from an AI-powered English version of the Taobao app for Singaporean users to even more unique features.
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Analysts with Nomura expect that Alibaba’s growth in international revenue has moderated to 29% year-on-year for the quarter ending in September while operating losses have decreased. The firm still needs to set a date for its quarterly earnings release.
