Alibaba Brings Visual AI Into Food Fight with China’s Meituan

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is launching a service to help restaurants use AI to showcase interiors, part of a broader effort to compete with Meituan in the Chinese food and dining sector.

Amap, Alibaba’s maps and local services unit, will soon allow restaurants to render 3D-images by just uploading videos or photos, according to people familiar with the matter. The idea is to lower marketing and promotional costs for merchants. Alibaba plans to offer the technology — based on its visual Wan model — to select businesses for free for a period of time, the people said, asking to remain anonymous discussing a non-public matter.