Alibaba chairman points to AI as core growth engine for e-commerce and cloud businesses

Alibaba Group Chairman Joe Tsai outlined the company’s strategic roadmap for the next three to five years during an internal event on May 10, highlighting e-commerce and “Cloud + AI” as the twin pillars of future growth. He emphasized that he believes artificial intelligence will be the core driver across all business segments. Tsai acknowledged that while e-commerce remains Alibaba’s strength, the Chinese tech giant still lacks a dominant position as a universal internet entry point. To address this, the company plans to use AI to create new user gateways and enhance shopping experiences through smarter recommendations, social commerce, and virtual assistants. Alibaba Cloud will play a foundational role in deploying AI at scale, according to Tsai. The company is investing in large language models, computing infrastructure, and industry-specific solutions to support enterprise-wide transformation. Tsai also highlighted AI initiatives across key platforms including second-hand marketplace Xianyu, search engine Quark, navigation app Amap, workplace tool DingTalk, and B2B portal 1688. [Sina Finance, in Chinese]