[HONG KONG] As the fight against Alibaba Group Holding for Chinese consumers heats up, Meituan has launched a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agent app aimed at boosting food delivery and local service businesses.
The Xiaomei agent, powered by Meituan's own long cat model, will be able to allow users to order meals and book restaurants using voice commands, according to a company statement on Friday (September 12). Food recommendations can also be provided, the statement said.
Xiaomei's name is a small Chinese language, and appears to be the first character combination of Meituan's Chinese name.
Meituan shares rose 1.6% in early trading in Hong Kong on Friday. Earlier this week, Meituan said it will test the agent toolset that will launch within a week.
Competition in China's more than US$80 billion food delivery market intensified earlier this year when JD.com decided to enter the field and challenge the longstanding double layer of Meituan and Alibaba's ELE.ME.
All three vowed to curb the disorderly competition in August and suspend price-based rivalry after being warned by government agencies.
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But earlier this week, Alibaba committed an additional 100 million yuan (SGD180 million) incentive to promote the local services business. Bloomberg
