Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can write 20,000 lines of advertising copy per second. Alibaba claims that the tool is already being used a million times a day by small to mid-size companies that want to create multiple versions of ads to fit different sized spaces.
According to the news, Fashion label Esprit has already used the tool to adjust the length and tone of its advertising copy and brands can choose whether they want ads to be “promotional, functional, fun, poetic or heart-warming.”
“For merchants, from today onwards, AI can take care of a portion of their copywriting needs. And it significantly changes the way (copywriters) work: They will shift from thinking up a copy — one line at a time — to choosing the best out of many machine-generated options, largely improving efficiency,” Says, Christina Lu, general manager of Alibaba’s marketing arm Alimama.
Advertising is set to become an important revenue stream for Alibaba, with predictions that it will take 40 percent of all Chinese mobile ad dollars next year, equivalent to more than $20 billion.
The company is potentially powerful for advertisers because of the data it has on the shopping habits of its almost 600 million monthly active mobile users. It is pushing its marketing services to companies globally, announcing a partnership with market research firm Kantar in June that will combine Alibaba’s data with Kantar’s knowledge of consumers’ habits.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma has said that he is concerned that businesses must adapt to a world that might be powered by AI and wants machines to be a “human partner” rather than an opponent.