According to reports from Intelligent Emergence, Alibaba's Intelligent Connectivity Business Group has recently been officially merged into the Intelligent Information Business Group, which will be managed by the latter's president, Wu Jia. In this integration, the Tmall Genie hardware team and the Quark product team have begun to operate together, focusing on planning and integrating capabilities for the next generation of AI products.
Established in 2022, Intelligent Connectivity is a primary business unit of Alibaba, centered around the Tmall Genie brand, and is an important part of the group's consumer-facing hardware business. Following this adjustment, Intelligent Connectivity will continue to operate independently, with its business center head, Song Gang, reporting directly to Wu Jia.
This adjustment follows the structural changes in the Tongyi business that occurred last December. At that time, the consumer-facing products and engineering teams of Tongyi were separated from Alibaba Cloud and merged into the Intelligent Information Business Group, forming a peer relationship with Quark, while the Tongyi Lab remained within the Alibaba Cloud system.
It is noteworthy that the merged team will explore new hardware directions, including AI glasses. This move aligns with the recent booming trend in the AI glasses market. At the recently concluded CES 2025, various smart glasses products made a significant appearance, showcasing a "battle of a hundred glasses." Earlier this year, Alibaba Cloud partnered with the AR brand Raybird Innovation (RayNeo) to provide exclusive custom support for its AI glasses with the Tongyi large model.
This business integration demonstrates Alibaba's deep commitment to the AI hardware field, exploring new directions for next-generation AI hardware products by integrating the technological capabilities of Tmall Genie, Quark, and Tongyi.
