BABA-SWR's fourth national-level application is about to explode

AI has once again made a significant impact in the office field.

Following the launch of AI products such as "Intelligent Partner" by ByteDance's office brand Feishu, DingTalk, owned by BABA-SWR, has also released its latest AI product.

On January 9th, at the DingTalk 7.5 product launch event, DingTalk officially unveiled an AI assistant product created in collaboration with 700,000 enterprises. This is a practical implementation in the B-end four months after BABA-SWR proposed the "AI-driven" strategy.

In terms of product functionality, the AI assistant product can perform tasks such as information summarization and document writing. Users can also use dialogue to activate DingTalk's screen projection, mind mapping, whiteboard, and other functions.

In addition, the product has the ability to execute tasks across systems and can connect with third-party apps such as external videos, news, and e-commerce.

It is understood that in the latest version of DingTalk, users can activate the AI assistant by clicking on the magic wand in the upper right corner of the home screen. Everyone can create their own AI assistant and improve office efficiency.

DingTalk President Ye Jun also released a set of data: by the end of 2023, DingTalk's user base has reached 700 million. This means that BABA-SWR has another national-level application in addition to Taobao, Alipay, and Amap.

Behind the user growth is the continuous increase in demand for intelligent office products, especially driven by artificial intelligence technology, application layer innovation has become a certain trend in the future.

Since ChatGPT swept the world, AI development has entered an unprecedented fast lane. In the past year, DingTalk has been continuously increasing its AI layout.

In April 2023, DingTalk announced that it was the first to officially integrate the "Tongyi Qianwen" large model, which marked the beginning of DingTalk's comprehensive intelligence. According to Ye Jun's plan, all scenarios will be intelligently laid out in the next year.

Soon, DingTalk successively released phased achievements in AI, launching the AI product "Slash", also known as the magic wand. It is similar to Apple's Siri and can perform functions such as content creation and group chat summarization through "/".

With the release of DingTalk's AI assistant product, it also means that DingTalk's intelligent strategy has been further improved.

Since BABA-SWR underwent the largest organizational transformation in history, "One Split Six", DingTalk's strategic position within the entire group has continued to rise.

In August 2023, DingTalk concluded its three-year "Cloud and Ding Integration" strategy and separated from BABA-SWR's cloud, returning to the BABA-SWR group and becoming a member of the 1+6+N organizational structure.

In November, DingTalk was identified as one of the first batch of strategic innovative businesses for BABA-SWR and will operate as an independent subsidiary. Based on this, DingTalk will break the positioning restrictions within the group in terms of business and face the broadest market with a more independent strategy. The group will continue to invest for a period of 3-5 years.

BABA-SWR's strong commitment to DingTalk is due to the promising market prospects in the field of intelligent office.

According to IDC data, the size of the Chinese enterprise team collaboration software market was 420 million USD in 2022, with a year-on-year growth of 12%. The organization predicts a compound annual growth rate of 21.1% for the enterprise team collaboration software market from 2022 to 2027. With the addition of AI, the market is expected to enter the fast lane.

In Wu Yongming's view, the arrival of the AI era will give DingTalk unprecedented imagination. "In the AI era, everyone and every company will have personalized intelligent assistants, and DingTalk is expected to become the best AI intelligent assistant platform for users."

According to DingTalk's data, as of now, DingTalk has more than 20 product lines and over 80 scenarios fully integrated with large models, making it the first domestically open AI national-level work application.

DingTalk President Ye Jun said at the meeting that as the AIGC wave enters productivity and application scenarios, AI Agents have become the best entry point for AI applications. In the next three years, there will be 10 million AI assistants generated on DingTalk.

Despite being in the forefront, the reality is that the payment rate for office software in China is much lower than in Europe and the United States. How to cultivate the habit of enterprise payment is a challenge faced by office products.

At the same time, DingTalk also faces competition from Feishu and WeChat Work, behind which are ByteDance and Tencent, respectively. This also means that it will be a competition between Internet giants.

Bai Wenxi, Chief Economist of IPG China, believes that the competition in the domestic office AI track is fierce, and companies need to continuously innovate and improve in terms of products, technology, and market. Especially, AI technology is iterating rapidly, which requires a large amount of research and development investment and technological accumulation.

By the end of 2023, DingTalk's paid DAU reached 28 million, and the number of paid software enterprises reached 120,000. This also means that among the 700,000 companies using AI products, the vast majority have not paid.

Half a year ago, Ye Jun set a goal for DingTalk to achieve breakeven within three years, which is basically consistent with the 3-5 year investment cycle of the BABA-SWR Group.

However, competitors have already started to take the lead. On January 9th, WeChat Work revealed in an internal communication meeting that it will be profitable this year, which also means that WeChat Work will achieve profitability ahead of DingTalk.

On one hand, there is the performance imagination brought by AI, on the other hand, there is the reality of being unable to make a profit. With the combination of operating losses and intense market competition, the burden on DingTalk is not light.

2024 marks the tenth anniversary of DingTalk's establishment and the first year of its independent development. Whether it can ride the wind of AI technological innovation to achieve rapid performance growth and ultimately achieve profitability is crucial for DingTalk.

Giving a helping hand, this is the strategic investment of BABA-SWR in DingTalk. The three-year investment has already begun, and DingTalk must quickly prove that it can survive independently.