Alibaba to Build ChatGPT-Like AI Into Meeting, Messaging Apps

Jane Zhang, Bloomberg News

The mascot for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s Taobao e-commerce platform at the company's affiliated hotel in Hangzhou, China, on Monday, Feb. 20, 2023. Alibaba is scheduled to release earnings results on Feb. 23. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is integrating its most advanced artificial intelligence system into its Slack-like DingTalk messaging app and a meeting assistant named Tingwu.

The large language model (LLM) developed by Alibaba Cloud, dubbed Tongyi Qianwen, is now powering interactions with a new version of the assistant, Tongyi Tingwu. It helps by analyzing audio and video files and generating text summaries, and is now open to the public to try. That bot will also be integrated into DingTalk, the cloud unit said in a statement Thursday.

OpenAI’s breakthrough ChatGPT bot has hastened the release of LLMs by companies around the globe, from internet players like Alibaba and Baidu Inc. to hardware companies like Asustek Computer Inc.

Alibaba announced its LLM on April 11, saying it will gradually add it across its various businesses to improve the user experience and enhance competitiveness. The integration with the meeting assistant is a response to the growing amount of video and audio consumed daily, the company’s cloud unit tech chief Jingren Zhou said in the statement.

Read more: Alibaba Enters ChatGPT Fray With AI Speaker, Slack-Like App