The Chinese tech company, Alibaba, is reportedly seeking out companies to test its new Tongyi Qianwen AI chatbot. Alibaba has reached out to testers via WeChat and a source with knowledge of the matter confirmed to Reuters that there is a chatbot and that it’s aimed at businesses, rather than the general public.
According to the South China Morning Post, corporate testers can gain access to the chatbot via Alibaba Cloud’s official WeChat account. Those that want to test the bot can leave their phone number and email address on a spartan website, according to Reuters.
Right now, details about the bot’s capabilities are a bit thin on the ground but Alibaba Cloud will be holding an event next Tuesday where a formal launch of the bot is expected. Hopefully, after the event, we’ll have a better idea of what the bot is capable of in comparison to its Western competitors such as ChatGPT, Bing Chat, and Google Bard.
If it’s revealed that Alibaba’s chatbot excels in any particular area compared to other bots, it shouldn’t be long until others are trying to catch up given how hot the generative AI race is right now.