Is it reliable to let AI order takeout, manage money, and see a doctor?
转载:定焦(dingjiaoone)原创
Author | Wang Lu
Edit | Wei Jia
No major Internet company wants to miss the AI outlet.
At the recent 2024 Inclusion Bund Conference, Ant Group launched three AI products at one time, namely "Zhi Xiaobao", "Ant Xiaocai", and "AI Health Butler", corresponding to the three major fields of clothing, food, housing, transportation, financial management, and medical care. Among them, "Zhi Xiaobao" can be used in Alipay, and there is also a standalone APP, and the other two tools are built into Alipay.
In addition to C-end oriented products, Ant Group has also made efforts to launch digital Ant Power solutions to enterprises. Launched the Alipay intelligent twins ecological co-construction plan, and launched the intelligent twins development platform Alipay "Treasure Box".
Behind this series of actions is the acceleration of Ant's AI strategy. However, although AI is popular at the moment, it is not an easy business to do. Due to problems such as large investment funds, long return cycles, and difficulty in monetizing models, domestic and foreign AI investments have cooled rapidly in terms of quantity and scale this year.
According to data from CB Insights, a world-renowned market data analysis company, in Q2 2024, the total global investment in the AI field will decrease by 38% quarter-on-quarter. According to the calculation of IT orange data, from January to August this year, there were 317 financing cases in the domestic AI industry, with a total financing amount of more than 33.3 billion yuan, and the average monthly financing amount was 4.2 billion yuan, less than 20% of last year.
At the moment, there are even fewer companies like Ant Group that have launched three different types of AI products at once.
And what is obviously different from other major Internet manufacturers is that these three AI products are not general-purpose AI products that can occupy a strong user base, and they do not focus on search, text, video and other categories, but choose to be vertical AI tools to serve Alipay products.
In fact, in the process of listing setbacks and three-year rectification, Ant has been diluting the "financial" label on its body and strengthening the "technology" attribute. Its credit business, which was once the largest source of income, has been divested, and its other major business, digital payments, has also been affected by the policy. Ants, eager to tell a new story, played the AI card. As early as 2023, "AI First" became one of Ant's strategies.
The centralized launch of this product is more like the acceleration of the "AI First" strategy. How are Ant's AI products doing? Can it leverage AI to drive a larger market?
Ants are new,
AI food ordering, AI financial management, AI medical treatment
Among Ant Group's intensive AI actions, three AI products have attracted the most attention. Among them, "Zhi Xiaobao" targets the largest number of users.
"Zhi Xiaobao" is positioned as a life steward, mainly to facilitate users to operate 4 million mini programs covering clothing, food, housing and transportation, including 12306, Eleme, AutoNavi, Didi, Cainiao Wrap, etc. In short, all the functions on Alipay can be woken up with one click with "Zhi Xiaobao".
"Fixed Focus" divides its functions into three main categories.
1. For the built-in function of Alipay, which is commonly used by users, "Zhi Xiaobao" can save the page search step.
For example, users only need to enter the desired information such as "ride code", "electronic social security card", "check the monthly consumption bill", "send a red envelope to XX" through "Zhi Xiaobao", and these functions can jump out directly.
2. For the APP software commonly used by users, such as booking hotels and ordering takeout, Alipay can wake up with one click and help users place orders.
For example, if you tell "Zhi Xiaobao" that you want to book a ticket from A to B on a certain day, it will select the eligible trains to generate an order, and the user only needs to click to book. In the same way, if you want to drink milk tea, you only need to tell it whether it is takeaway or self-pickup, and what brand it is, and it will pop up a takeaway order link.
In terms of tourism, "Zhi Xiaobao" also cooperated with Huangshan Scenic Area to launch the "Huangshan Intelligent Body" - Huang Xiaosong, which is positioned as a "full-process AI escort". The tool will provide services such as guides, explanations, taxi calling, surrounding food, and business recommendations as the spatial positioning of tourists changes.
3. "Zhi Xiaobao" comes with a companion reminder function.
For example, in the morning, it will remind the user of the weather conditions of the day, whether there is a courier in the evening, and if the user has the habit of drinking coffee and milk tea every day, it will also remind whether to have a cup at noon.
Let's take a look at the AI financial management tool "Ant Xiaocai".
There are not many AI tools on the market that are specifically for financial management, and many users use general-purpose AI tools to query financial information.
Xiao Kun, who has just graduated from the finance major, used Wenxin Yiyan and Kimi to collect financial information, but usually gets a lot of marginal information, and it is difficult to find the accurate answer she wants.
She gave an example of "fixed focus", such as throwing the question of "what investment and wealth management products to buy at the moment to make money" to AI, Kimi and Wenxin Yiyan's replies were more general, mentioning bank products, creditor's rights and other categories, and said that they need to be adjusted according to market changes and personal circumstances. The reply of "Ma Xiaocai" is more clear, pointing out that it is necessary to invest in some cost-effective fund products, and will also give specific examples.
Xiao Kun thinks that Alipay, which is backed by hundreds of millions of financial users, is not the same as a general AI tool, and it may be more targeted to train financial vertical models, so the answer is like a straightforward boy. Not only that, many users are accustomed to buying funds and bonds on Alipay, and she feels that "Ant Xiaocai", as a sub-item of Alipay, will give more reliable answers.
The "AI Health Manager" covers more than 30 online and offline medical services.
According to the official introduction, Ant's "AI Health Manager" connects 900,000 doctors across the country, 70% of whom are from tertiary hospitals, and users can conduct one-on-one consultations with expert AI assistants online; You can also upload a test report that you don't understand, and the AI can translate some medical terms into the vernacular. If the user chooses to seek medical treatment offline, the product also provides registration and escort services.
Let AI be a housekeeper, manage money, and see a doctor,
Is it really reliable?
Although Ant's three AI products cover clothing, food, housing, transportation, financial management, and medical care, and the products can indeed play some roles, they have not appeared to the extent that AI products such as Wenxin Yiyan, Kimi, Sora, Suno, and Kuaishou Keling have been hotly discussed by the whole people when they first appeared.
"Fixed Focus" also asked AI practitioners and Alipay users in different fields, and most of them said that they had not used these three products, and some people had not even heard of them.
On the one hand, the attention is not high, because there are a large number of AI products at present, and users have been desensitized to AI, and on the other hand, these three AI products of Ant are relatively vertical.
A practitioner who pays close attention to AI said that compared with AI search, AI video, AI music and other tools, Ant's three products are relatively niche and mainly serve Alipay users.
Many users have also pointed out a lot of problems after using it.
The positioning of "Zhi Xiaobao" life butler makes many users hope that it is a general-purpose product that can meet their daily life, but from the current use situation, it is more like Siri intelligent voice assistant, which is mainly convenient for users to call up the various functions existing in Alipay, involving functions other than Alipay, and the reply is relatively simple.
For example, "Zhi Xiaobao" also supports user search, but the content given is relatively simple, and unlike Kimi, it can provide links to data sources, so users cannot judge the accuracy of the information; On the output of long text, only the main points are provided, and long text of several hundred words cannot be generated.
One user said that the positioning of non-generic tools limits the number of times "Zhi Xiaobao" can be used. He thinks that the launch of the weather and express delivery reminder functions is not very useful, and the mobile phone system and SMS reminders will be more convenient. Relatively useful is the ticket booking and taxi function, and it will be more convenient and faster to use "Zhi Xiaobao" than to open the relevant software.
There are also some users who say that "Zhi Xiaobao" has problems such as semantic understanding errors, associated with express delivery information but unable to associate Taobao orders, and no contextual memory for exiting and re-entering, which has affected their experience.
The "AI Health Manager", which focuses on medical treatment, can respond in a timely manner and respond quickly in terms of finding doctors and reading reports, but the content of the reply cannot fully meet the needs of users.
One experiencer said that he took a photo of the color ultrasound report and uploaded it to the "AI Health Butler", and the reply he got was "We are working hard to learn this kind of content, and we will provide you with more comprehensive report interpretation services in the future".
In his opinion, the services provided by "AI Health Manager" are still relatively rudimentary and have not departed from the scope of auxiliary tools.
As for AI financial management, Ant officially introduced that "Ant Xiaocai" has connected more than 200 mainstream professional institutions such as fund companies, brokerages, and financial media, as well as more than 15,000 professional financial creators. However, many users believe that even if the answers provided by "Ma Xiaocai" are more understandable and clear, they cannot replace professional practitioners, and the information provided can only be used as a reference.
Some professionals also pointed out that compared with developed countries, the mainland's capital market is not mature enough and has high volatility, and under normal circumstances, artificial intelligence cannot identify and solve it. This further reduces the professionalism of AI financial management.
In short, these three AI products are not attractive enough in terms of versatility at first, and then some flaws in the use process further reduce users' willingness to use.
Why do ants do AI so much?
In addition to the performance of the three AI products, what is more noteworthy is why Ant Group is vigorously doing AI? After three years of rectification, what cards does Ant still have in his hand?
Let's briefly review the ant's past.
Back in 2020, Ant originally planned to IPO on both A-shares and Hong Kong stocks on November 5. But just two days before the official listing, the IPO was put on hold.
If the price is 68.8 yuan per share at that time, the market value of Ant's IPO will reach 2.1 trillion, setting a record for the world's largest IPO, and Jack Ma will also completely secure the position of the richest man in China.
In the face of this "giant", the biggest controversy in the outside world at that time was whether Ant was a technology company or a financial company. This not only determines what valuation system will be applied to Ant when it goes public, but also what regulatory policies will apply.
Looking at the prospectus at that time, Ant's main revenue was divided into three major areas: digital payment and merchant services, digital fintech platforms (including micro-loan technology platforms, financial technology platforms, and insurance technology platforms), innovative businesses, and others. In the first half of 2020, the revenue of the top two businesses accounted for 35.86% and 63.39% respectively.
Among them, the revenue of micro-loan technology (small loans), which is subordinate to digital financial technology, reached 28.586 billion yuan, accounting for 39% of the operating income, exceeding the payment business. In the first half of 2020, credit-related net profit was 10.2 billion yuan, accounting for 47.8% of Ant Group's total profit, nearly half of the country.
In other words, "credit" was actually Ant's pillar business at that time, and its financial attributes were stronger. This is also a big reason why it is regulated.
After the IPO was suspended, Ant Group began a three-year rectification. The biggest adjustment is to withdraw from the small loan business, isolate the brand of its credit products Huabei and Borrow, and close down the "Mutual Treasure" business in accordance with regulatory requirements.
Timeline of Ant Group's rectification Photo source / CITIC Securities
In July 2023, the three major financial management departments announced at the same time that most of the outstanding problems in the financial business of platform companies such as Ant Group have been rectified and will be transferred to normalized supervision in the future.
This marks the completion of Ant Group's rectification, but the next problem it has to face is discounted valuation and difficulty in making money.
In July 2023, Ant Group announced a share buyback, and according to media reports, based on the repurchase pricing at that time, Ant's overall valuation fell by about 40% from the valuation of the 2018 Series C financing.
Li Keshun, an expert in the application of data elements in the industry, told Dingjiao that withdrawing from the credit business will directly affect Ant's cash flow, revenue scale and profit margins. Meng Xiang, a senior Internet finance researcher, also said that although there is no public information to see Ant's financial data, the two sectors of payment and credit were the main revenue drivers before, and the growth rate of credit is faster, and after reducing financial attributes, Ant's profitability will definitely be affected.
Another major business, digital payment, has also been affected by the policy. In 2021, the "Notice on Reducing Payment Fees for Small and Micro Enterprises and Individually-owned Industrial and Commercial Households" was issued, and measures such as extending the free service period for cash collection code withdrawals and providing merchants with preferential online payment service fees have all lowered the gross profit of this business. Li Keshun said that the single profit of Ant Digital Pay is very small, but because the large user volume business has been maintained, the growth of user volume has reached the ceiling.
Therefore, after the "slimming" Ant Group, it needs to find new increments, especially new increments that can strengthen its technological attributes, and AI has become a major breakthrough.
In 2023, Ant Group has identified three strategic directions: "AI First", "Alipay Double Flywheel", and "Accelerating Globalization", putting AI in an important position. In March 2024, Ant Group announced its largest internal business restructuring since 2020. According to public information, the restructured Ant is divided into two main businesses: main business (digital payment, digital interconnection and digital finance) and innovation (Ant International, OceanBase, and Ant Digital). Among them, Ant International, OceanBase, and Ant Digital began to operate independently, and there is a view that the divestment of these non-core businesses is to pave the way for Ant Group to restart its IPO.
The centralized launch of AI products this time represents the acceleration of Ant Group's "AI First" strategy, and it is also a new story that Ant is eager to tell to the outside world. Meng Xiang said, "Ant does AI, on the one hand, to enhance its own scientific and technological attributes, on the other hand, to find business increments, and to occupy the track of cutting-edge technology. In Li Keshun's view, Alipay has covered a large number of young netizens, and "Zhi Xiaobao" and "AI Health Butler" support voice commands, one-click jump and other functions, which can bring some elderly people or special groups to Alipay.
Some practitioners believe that Ant has an earlier layout in AI and has technical reserves, and the products launched this time are also combined with existing businesses, and the general direction is right, but the products are not yet disruptive innovations, but more like conveying a kind of confidence to the outside world.
As for whether AI can be used to leverage more users and the capital market, we will have to wait and see.
*Image from Unsplash. At the request of the interviewee, Meng Xiang is a pseudonym in the article.