Ping An is the quiet digital giant of China. It began as an insurance company. Then it added a wealth management company. Then it added a bank. And now it is focusing on healthcare. And, along the way, it became a full tech company. It’s right up there with Alibaba, ByteDance and the others. I […]
In Part 1, I detailed some of the basics of SenseTime, China’s leading computer vision company. I argued it was basically a linear business model, not a platform. It mostly reminds me of Adobe and traditional software companies. But the economics of AI software companies at large scale are still largely unknown. Especially when it […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson discusses two big questions about the business models of AI software companies: What are the unit economics of large AI companies? What types of scale advantages and network effects do large AI companies have? He argues that AI software companies are still in the early stages of development, and that the answers to these questions will depend on how the market for AI software evolves in the years to come.
In Part 1, I detailed some of the basics of SenseTime, China’s leading computer vision company. And I argued it was basically a linear business model, not a platform. It reminded me of Adobe and traditional software companies. But the economics of AI software companies at scale are still unknown. Especially when it is done […]
Chinese computer vision company SenseTime is now public. This was after years of setback after setback, including being placed on the US Treasury Department’s list of “Chinese military-industrial complex companies.” But it is now public in Hong Kong and it gives a fantastic look at the frontier of AI in China, especially computer vision. Why […]
This is a follow-up to my article on conversational AI with He Xiaodong at JD (article here, podcast here). I also spoke with Tao Mei, who is Vice President of Cloud & AI – and Technical support Vice President of JD. We talked about how AI was being used in fashion, which is a fascinating […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson interviews the Vice President of Cloud & AI at JD.com about how AI is transforming the fashion industry. They discuss three key areas where AI is having an impact: personalization, supply chain management, and product development. For example, AI can be used to recommend products to customers based on their past purchases, track inventory levels and optimize shipping routes, and design new products that are more likely to appeal to consumers.
I had a fascinating discussion with He Xiaodong of JD. He is the head of Deep Learning, NLP and the Speech Lab. And the Deputy Managing Director of JD AI Research. I did a podcast about this called Products with Personalities (Podcast 31) but I wanted to post some of his slides from our talk. […]
In this podcast, Jeffrey Towson interviews He Xiaodong, the Vice President of JD.com’s Cloud & AI division, about conversational AI. They discuss how conversational AI is evolving from chatbots to intelligent assistants with personalities. For example, Xiaodong explains how JD’s Smart Customer Service has been designed to have the personality of a young woman, in order to better connect with its customers.
李开复博士出版了一本新书，名为《AI·未来》。此书对中国和美国的人工智能作了广泛的对比，受到了媒体的热捧。我很有幸在北京中国美国商会现场聆听了他本人的新书分享会。