Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has developed an AI tool (artificial intelligence) capable of producing 20,000 lines of content per second. Created as part of Alibaba's digital marketing unit Alimama, the tool aims to reduce the heavy and arduous workload of producing copy for product listings by retailers, working by scraping "millions" of existing human writing samples from the company's e-commerce platforms which it interprets using deep-learning models and natural language processing (NLP) technologies. According to Alibaba, the AI tool has passed the Turing Test where a machine is analysed for its ability to imitate a human without detection and is already being used "millions of times a day" by retailers on its properties including Tmall, Mei.com, 1699.com and Taobao. Global fashion brands Esprit and Dickies are two such retailers already using the tool, which can be accessed by selecting an option to'Produce Smart Copy', allowing them to choose from samples of varying tones including "promotional, functional, fun, poetic, or heartwarming". While the release of Alibaba's AI tool will be welcome news for retailers, it may result in some sweaty palms among copywriters.

It wasn't clear if Alimama actually conducted a Turing test--in which humans judged whether copy came from a person or AI--or if Alimama means more generally that its AI-generated copy sounds like it was written by a person. Alibaba wouldn't provide any details about how the test was conducted as a company rep declined to comment on the record. In a blog post, Alimama said its AI copywriter uses deep learning and natural language processing to learn from "millions of top-quality existing samples [on ecommerce sites Tmall and Taobao] to generate copy." To use the AI copywriter, brands insert a link to a product page and click the "Produce Smart Copy" button for suggestions. They can adjust the length and tone with options like promotional, functional, fun, poetic or heartwarming.