eBay CTO: AI is now an 'ecosystem' for us

While eBay could have used any number of existing AI platforms to enhance its various products, the company instead elected to build its own AI system -- dubbed Krylov -- in-house and make it open source for anyone to use. That decision appears to be paying off. The San Jose-based company has made no secret of its AI ambitions over the past four years, hoovering up technical talent via acquisitions and launching myriad automated tools to spot credit card fraud, improve product listings, and bring other nifty features to buyers and sellers. Late last year, eBay also relaunched a standalone vehicle-focused Motors app, with AI and automation at its core. Such is the pervasiveness of AI across eBay in 2020 that the company's chief technology officer, Mazen Rawashdeh, says AI is now an "ecosystem" at the company.