Hello, Jarvis? China's new AI app stirs dreams of Tony Stark's assistant becoming reality

The latest artificial intelligence (AI) app announced in China appears to be raising the hopes of consumers for a future in which a version of Jarvis, the smart virtual assistant of Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, becomes commonplace in the world's second-largest economy.

Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, made its foray into Jarvis-like territory when it launched on Thursday the Zhixiaobao app - a so-called life assistant that can help users order meals, hail taxis, book tickets, and discover local dining and entertainment options, while accessing third-party services in the firm's Alipay payment platform more easily. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

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The app also provides a number of built-in AI agents - such as "English-language tutor" and "fitness pro" - each with specific domain knowledge that makes them an expert in their own fields.

This development forms part of Ant Group's efforts to turn AI into a "practical, user-focused solution", which would make Zhixiaobao a "valuable tool in everyday life", company president and chief financial officer Cyril Han Xinyi said in a statement.

Ant Group on Thursday launched Zhixiaobao, a standalone artificial intelligence assistant app. Photo: SCMP alt=Ant Group on Thursday launched Zhixiaobao, a standalone artificial intelligence assistant app. Photo: SCMP>

Zhixiaobao - a play on Zhifubao, the Chinese name of Alipay - reflects how China's nascent AI industry is further burnishing its reputation, as a number of innovative services have already been widely deployed overseas.

Social media giant ByteDance's CapCut video-editing software and Doubao model led global AI app downloads in July, according to industry research firm Unique Capital, in a sign that the TikTok owner's generative AI (GenAI) push is paying off.

Chinese-developed AI-powered education apps - including Question. AI, developed by Beijing-based educational technology start-up Zuoyebang, and ByteDance's Gauth - were ranked among the top three free educational apps in the United States on Apple's App Store and Google Play from February to May, according to mobile app intelligence service AppMagic.

To use Zhixiaobao, which was built on Ant Group's foundational Bailing large language model (LLM), users can either download the mobile app or simply pull down the homepage of the Alipay app. LLMs - the technology underpinning GenAI services like ChatGPT - are deep-learning algorithms that can recognise, summarise, translate, predict and generate content using very large data sets.

Ant Group's Zhixiaobao app lets users conveniently find and book flights through simple voice commands. Photo: Ben Jiang alt=Ant Group's Zhixiaobao app lets users conveniently find and book flights through simple voice commands. Photo: Ben Jiang>

With just a simple voice prompt - for example, "help book a flight next Friday from Beijing to Xiamen, take-off time before noon" - Zhixiaobao comes up with a list of flights to choose from. One click on the selected flight takes users directly to booking, which is processed by Alibaba's online travel service Fliggy.

Commands to order food deliveries, create a pie chart analysis of monthly expenditures, mobile top-up, check on parcel delivery status or make hospital appointments can immediately be carried out on the app by tapping various Alibaba services, including shopping platform Taobao, logistics service Cainiao, food delivery unit Ele.me and online mapping unit Gaode.

Zhixiaobao users can tap into more than 8,000 digital life services and more than 4 million mini-apps provided by Alipay to make it useful for almost all online functions on the mainland.

Baidu's Wenxiaoyan enables users to make real-time queries related to a video, while continuing to view it. Photo: Ben Jiang alt=Baidu's Wenxiaoyan enables users to make real-time queries related to a video, while continuing to view it. Photo: Ben Jiang>

Earlier this week, Chinese internet search giant Baidu announced the Chinese rebranding of its flagship AI app Ernie Bot, with about 200 million users as of April, to Wenxiaoyan - reflecting the tool's position as a "new search" assistant, according to Xue Su, vice-president and head of AI innovation business at Baidu.

While less sophisticated as the fictional Jarvis, Wenxiaoyan proved useful in finding relevant information, according to a test conducted by the Post.

While watching a short video about a diner from within the app, Wenxiaoyan was able to quickly prepare a list of items relevant to the video, such as signature recommendations, and respond to a question about the transport route to the place. This showed how Wenxiaoyan has evolved from traditional text-based chatbot a more flexible search assistant using voice commands, camera-captured images and video content.

Wenxiaoyan's so-called "memory" function helps the app pick up and remember users' personal details - including anniversaries, personal food preferences or daily anecdotes - for context in conversations. Frequent use of Wenxiaoyan enables the app to know its user better. That not only makes it a valuable repository of personal history, but also makes it harder for consumers to switch to a different service.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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