Alibaba Group Holding has begun a revamp of its artificial intelligence chatbot in a move to match OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to app store information and media reports, as some observers see “panic” in Silicon Valley over the Chinese tech giant’s rapid AI progress.
The new chatbot app, Qwen, an upgraded and renamed version of the previous app, Tongyi, became available on Android and Apple app stores on Friday.
Alibaba dubbed the updated app the “most powerful official AI assistant for its models” and “the primary entry point for experiencing the latest and most powerful Qwen model”, in app-store descriptions. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
The upgrade was part of a larger overhaul that the company was set to carry out on the AI app in coming months to bring it closer to the functions of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to a Bloomberg report on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The company also planned to add agentic-AI features to the app to boost shopping on platforms including the main Taobao marketplace, Bloomberg reported.
Alibaba did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
