Alibaba: from digital native to AI native

There is a lot of talk about AI tools. Far less about how far ahead Chinese companies already are. After an immersion inside Alibaba, the directors of the documentary “China AI” came back with one conviction: the lead may not be about the technology, but about the way it is built in. And that changes quite a few things for brands.

AI is no longer a tool. It is a backbone

At Alibaba, Delphine Souquet and Sébastien Lion found an approach far removed from the familiar “let’s try an AI tool on one project”. AI is described as the “backbone” of the different entities. Projects are designed with AI from the outset. It gradually becomes invisible because it is everywhere. The question is no longer whether the marketing team will use Deepseek, Qwen or another tool. The question is where AI can genuinely change the way content is designed, produced, distributed or personalised.

Start from what the company actually needs

The directors insist on one principle: China develops its uses from very concrete needs, with a strong connection between companies, research, education and public procurement. The trap to avoid: starting from the technology, then looking for a problem to solve.

In brand content, the temptation is real: you discover that an AI can generate a video or produce a hundred variants of a post. So you generate a video and produce a hundred variants, but producing faster does not necessarily mean producing better.

Test-and-learn is no longer a method. It is the Chinese mindset

What strikes both directors at Alibaba is the sheer energy of experimentation: you try, you adjust, you question projects, existing systems and even business portfolios. AI moves too fast to build a three year plan today and wait quietly for it to happen. You have to test, measure, keep what works and drop the rest.

The right use of AI is not decreed in a board meeting. It is also discovered by doing.

The further AI goes, the more humans need to know where they are heading

The directors say they were surprised by the place given to ethics, governance and responsibility in their conversations with Alibaba’s leaders. The more room AI takes, the more you need to know who decides.

For a brand, the question becomes particularly sensitive. Because a brand is not only a volume of content to produce, but a vision, a tone, choices, a culture, sometimes even contradictions. AI can speed up content production and multiply the possibilities. It can even become a remarkable creative partner. But it cannot decide, in the brand’s place, what the brand wants to say.

In short

The Chinese experience described by Delphine Souquet and Sébastien Lion invites brands to change focus. AI is not only a tool to produce faster or cheaper: it can become a new infrastructure for creation and transformation. Provided you start from the company’s real needs, experiment continuously and set the rules of the game from the outset. Because the more powerful AI becomes, the more strategic the brand vision becomes.

Want AI to serve a brand vision rather than the other way round? MyJiminy brings together the creative talents and the tools to go from the idea to the content that counts. Let’s talk.

*The full interview, in French, is available here