Byte and NetEase have entered the market one after another. After AI, have major manufacturers found the next outlet?

If you want to ask about the hottest technology trend at the moment, AI large models must be the most popular. But perhaps because the AI ​​​​track is so popular, there are too many companies joining the competition, and the cost and difficulty of large-scale model development are too high, the pressure on the giants is increasing day by day, and they are beginning to think about whether they should continue to focus on large AI models.

At this time, another forgotten track suddenly became lively again - robots.

On this side, ByteDance was revealed to be expanding its robot research and development team from the current approximately 50 people to hundreds of people by the end of the year. It will mainly develop and produce intelligent sorting and product packaging robots to help Byte's e-commerce business. It is reported that the head of ByteDance’s robot R&D team is Li Hang, director of Byte AI Lab. The latter served as director and chief scientist of Huawei’s Noah’s Ark Laboratory and has rich R&D experience and industry connections.

On the other side, NetEase, which seems to be out of reach of robots, has also heard some new news. The latest information shows that NetEase recently invested 5 million and 1 million yuan respectively in Hangzhou to establish two wholly-owned subsidiaries, Hangzhou NetEase Xuanzhiyuan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. and NetEase Qianbo Intelligent Technology (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd., and their business scopes are also Including the research and development of intelligent robots.

Overnight, robots will become popular again?

The reason why Byte develops robots is easy for outsiders to understand. As Douyin e-commerce continues to expand, with special emphasis on shelf e-commerce business and the construction of Douyin Mall, the proportion of self-operated products continues to increase, so the requirements for after-sales logistics will also increase.

At present, Douyin has not established a self-operated logistics team like traditional e-commerce giants such as JD.com and Alibaba, nor has it invested in the construction of logistics centers on a large scale. It still wants to maintain a light-asset operating model as much as possible. The application of robots can reduce dependence on manpower and is also a way to reduce costs.

In fact, Alibaba, JD.com and even Meituan have all tried to introduce robot services, with the same purpose of reducing labor costs. Alibaba Damo Academy also launched the Xiaomanlu unmanned delivery vehicle. However, the robots and unmanned delivery businesses of these major manufacturers have encountered varying degrees of setbacks, which has also caused some doubts about the practicality of intelligent robots. If Byte follows the old path of Ali and others, can it rewrite the outcome of the former?

The outside world’s doubts about intelligent robots have always been focused on two aspects: First, the research and development costs are too high, and second, the practicality has not been tested, making it difficult to promote on a large scale in a short period of time.

For wealthy giants such as ByteDance and NetEase, the former problem is not that serious. As long as they are determined to invest in robot research and development, they will definitely be able to support the corresponding expenditures. Considering the many failed cases of commercial applications in the past, Byte Company should indeed learn from experience and lessons carefully. Only by improving the performance and intelligence level of the robot can the smooth operation be ensured to the greatest extent.

The above is the detailed content of Byte and NetEase have entered the market one after another. After AI, have major manufacturers found the next outlet?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!