On December 30, Alipay introduced its cutting-edge AI visual search product, 'Explore It,' leveraging its proprietary multimodal large model technology to enable users to 'explore everything with AI eyes.' This innovation offers faster, informative, and engaging generative search services.

When users encounter something intriguing, they can harness the AI through their camera to identify flowers, pets, trendy toys, offer on-the-spot travel tips, and inquire about product and medication details. The product also offers playful interpretations of pet and baby photos, making it a breeze to share these photos with captivating captions. Currently available on Alipay, users can access 'Explore It' by swiping left after clicking 'Scan' on the homepage or through the ZhiXiaoBao App.

Since 2024, Alipay has rolled out independent AI applications like 'ZhiXiaoBao' and an intelligent agent development platform. The introduction of 'Explore It,' focusing on the AI visual multimodal domain, signifies the relentless acceleration of Ant Group's AI strategy centered around Alipay.

Empowering AI to See the World Around Us

In recent years, generative AI has surged ahead, with multimodal technology making vision a new gateway to digital services. Alipay launched 'Explore It' with the vision of transforming AI into the 'eyes of curiosity' for everyday individuals, assisting them in exploring their surroundings and enabling AI image recognition for search, creation, and interaction.

Unlike traditional AI visual search tools, 'Explore It' swiftly provides useful information through AI image recognition. With a profound understanding of user interests and contexts, it also offers more engaging visual interpretations and diverse intelligent services.

Through hands-on experience, it was observed that 'Explore It' currently offers three core services: knowledge exploration, inspiration, and text recognition.

When confronted with something hard to describe in words, 'Explore Knowledge' enables AI to instantly recognize images and impart new knowledge at any time.

For instance, outdoor enthusiasts and travelers can effortlessly obtain information about unfamiliar flora, fauna, cuisine, architecture, exhibition items, etc., effectively serving as an 'intelligent tour guide.' Young people can use it to look up tips on their favorite figurines and toys, while parents can identify 68 types of Ultraman, never again being stumped by their children's queries.

Netizens Use 'Explore It' to Identify Ultraman

When encountering foreign language product details that are challenging to comprehend, 'Explore It' provides the necessary details, making it simpler to purchase the same product online. For medication boxes lacking instructions, not only can detailed information be found, but Alipay's 'AI Health Butler' can also be accessed for additional medication guidance.

Leveraging the generative AI's capabilities, 'Explore Inspiration' triggers intelligent visual filters based on scenarios, enabling AI to offer playful interpretations, making it simple to share photos with captivating captions.

Pet owners can take photos of their pets and customize 'pet thoughts,' allowing their furry friends to 'speak' in a heartwarming manner. Parents fond of sharing photos of their children on social media can also let AI help articulate their love for their kids.

Additionally, when traveling abroad or learning a foreign language and encountering unreadable menus or signs, 'Explore Text' can easily recognize and translate the text.

Revolutionizing AI Visual Search, Alipay AI Continues to Accelerate

Historically, search engines primarily returned relevant results through keyword matching. As a new generation of generative AI visual search product, 'Explore It' does not merely provide search links but offers a more intelligent, enriched, and interactive service experience grounded in the visual understanding and creation capabilities of its multimodal large model.

Relevant data indicates that over 80% of human information acquisition stems from vision. AI products centered on vision can significantly lower the barrier for human-AI interaction and unlock numerous AI application scenarios, achieving 'what you see is what you search, what you see is what you get.' Globally, Google Lens processes over 20 billion visual search queries per month, and Apple recently introduced a feature called 'Visual Intelligence,' using the phone camera to help users 'instantly understand everything they see.'

As an open digital lifestyle platform with hundreds of millions of users, Alipay has introduced the AI visual search product 'Explore It' and integrated it into the core 'Scan' entry. By continually upgrading its products, Alipay aims to make AI as convenient as scanning for payment in everyone's daily lives—not just having a brain to converse and hands and feet to act, but also eyes to explore the world around us.

The dense rollout of Alipay AI products underscores the comprehensive acceleration of Ant Group's AI First strategy. In November 2023, Ant launched its self-developed Bailing large model. Since September this year, it has successively introduced three AI applications—ZhiXiaoBao, MaXiaoCai, and AI Health Butler—along with the intelligent agent development platform 'Treasure Chest,' accelerating the development of an open AI service ecosystem.