How Alibaba’s AI‑Driven Information Retrieval Is Shaping E‑Commerce Futures

On May 19, the Chinese Computer Society Youth Working Committee, the Information Retrieval Special Committee, and Alibaba jointly organized the second “Frontiers and Future of Information Retrieval” forum. Leading scholars from Peking University, Tsinghua University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other institutions presented their research.

Alibaba’s CTO Zhang Jianfeng emphasized the critical role of information retrieval in the future of the internet, noting the explosion of data such as videos, products, and user behavior, which demands new technologies and methods.

Using intelligent customer service as an example, Zhang illustrated how Alibaba now leverages AI and algorithms to analyze historical buyer‑seller data—purchase counts, complaint histories, product views—to assist customer service decisions, shifting from experience‑based judgment to data‑driven insights.

Alibaba maintains a massive e‑commerce catalog of 1.5–2 billion items, generating highly structured, real‑world data that includes product classifications, merchant uploads, user browsing, and transaction records, forming a closed‑loop data ecosystem. Zhang highlighted that this structured data not only supports analysis and research but also enables numerous extensions and collaborations with IR experts.

Since announcing its NASA program in March, Alibaba has showcased breakthroughs such as quantum computers, immersion liquid‑cooling data centers, and Machine Learning Platform 2.0, attracting industry attention. The company continues to deepen collaborations with academia, participating in top conferences like SIGIR, ACM, and ASPLOS, and engaging in joint research projects with domestic and international universities.

Alibaba plans to soon release a research innovation program to invite more experts to cooperate on frontier technologies, aiming to produce influential academic results and drive broader socioeconomic development.