Alibaba Launches Quark: A Comprehensive AI Assistant for Chat, Images, and Videos

Alibaba has introduced Quark, a versatile AI assistant that has quickly gained traction in China, reportedly surpassing competitors such as ByteDance's Doubao and DeepSeek. Following a recent transformation, Quark has evolved from a cloud storage service with search capabilities into a comprehensive application capable of generating images, assisting in research, and aiding in coding tasks.

According to reports, Quark boasts approximately 150 million monthly active users globally, a significant lead over ByteDance's Doubao, which has around 100 million users, and DeepSeek, which has 77 million. These figures are sourced from app stores operated by Google and Apple, although they do not account for direct access via web services. Notably, the South China Morning Post, a publication affiliated with Alibaba, highlighted these statistics.

In a study conducted by the U.S.-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Quark was noted to rank sixth among the most utilized AI assistants on mobile devices. OpenAI's ChatGPT leads the list, followed closely by Nova AI Chatbot and Microsoft's AI functionalities within the Edge browser, as well as Baidu's Ernie models, which have recently become available as open-source.

Meta is poised to introduce Meta AI, which aims to become the world's most widely used AI chatbot, reportedly engaging around 700 million users monthly. However, it's important to note that Meta AI is not accessible in China. Additionally, Apple does not offer its ChatGPT access on iPhones within China, opting instead to integrate Alibaba's AI models. Initial reports suggested that Apple was in discussions with Baidu, but ultimately, the partnership was secured with Alibaba.

The competitive landscape within China is intense, with ByteDance leveraging its success from TikTok to gain a head start. Meanwhile, DeepSeek has created ripples in Silicon Valley by making its cost-effective models, R1 and V1, freely available.