The first product of Alibaba's "C Plan" was recently officially unveiled, which is the chat assistant launched on the Quark App. This move marks that Alibaba Group is concentrating its highest priority resources to create a consumer-facing AI entry point for young users and to complete its ecosystem loop in consumer applications.
According to a report by the Science and Technology Daily, the Quark chat assistant uses Qwen (Tongyi Qianwen), the latest closed-source model. Users can access this feature by clicking on the assistant mode on the homepage of the Quark App or by swiping right.
From a product form and function perspective, the Quark chat assistant is similar to competitors such as ByteDance's "Doubao," integrating core features such as general Q&A, deep search, photo-based problem solving, and AI writing, and it can also access tools such as scanning and image editing.
However, Quark successfully integrated search capabilities with a conversational experience through its long-term accumulation and advantages in photo-based problem solving and information retrieval, making it the first AI product in China to achieve this integration.
It is reported that the Quark App currently has over 150 million monthly active users, mainly young users under the age of 25. This group has a high acceptance of AI tools, which highly overlaps with the target user base for conversational AI.
Previously, it was reported that Quark is advancing a new AI business called the "C Plan," which brings together the core product team of Quark and senior researchers from the Tongyi Lab. The resource priority has been elevated to the highest level by Alibaba Group, aiming directly at the conversational AI application market. The launch of this chat assistant is the first milestone achievement of the "C Plan."
