At the press conference, I asked several questions about the "Amap Street Scanning List".
September 10th is Alibaba's birthday. AutoNavi, a subsidiary of Alibaba, held a product launch event and introduced a new product - "AutoNavi Street - Scanning List" with the new positioning of "the super new entry for Alibaba's lifestyle services".
36Kr reporters at the launch event noticed that although the AutoNavi Street - Scanning List is named a "list", in essence, it is an AI - driven offline service credit system. It is a new species that starts with the catering industry and has "action + trust" as the core of the product, marking a new beginning.
As soon as it was launched, the AutoNavi Street - Scanning List caught the high - level attention of both the internet industry and the catering industry. 36Kr interviewed several industry insiders at the earliest opportunity, sorted out various questions, and tried to find answers to several key questions.
01. Why is the Street - Scanning List a "brand - new species"?
When consumers and merchants evaluate whether a lifestyle service list is good or not, they mainly focus on two aspects: authenticity and comprehensiveness. The underlying logic of the AutoNavi Street - Scanning List is AI - driven. AI is used to ensure authenticity, and scale expansion is used to achieve comprehensiveness.
As a national - level map application, AutoNavi has accumulated a profound understanding of the real world and unique spatial intelligence technology capabilities. This determines that the AutoNavi Street - Scanning List is not a flat ranking but an AI - based real presentation of complex and diverse lifestyle scenarios and user choices. AI capabilities are the underlying technical support for the AutoNavi Street - Scanning List. At the beginning of August, AutoNavi completed a comprehensive AI upgrade, using Alibaba's Tongyi large - model at the bottom layer, popularizing spatial intelligence in real - world scenarios. It can understand the intentions, provide precise recommendations, and match supply and demand for dynamic groups based on different geographical and environmental information.
Based on its AI product capabilities, the AutoNavi Street - Scanning List focuses on "taking action" and "keeping promises". Obviously, a person who has never visited a store has no right to rate or write comments on it. AutoNavi scientifically quantifies users' behaviors such as navigation and store visits on AutoNavi Maps through AI algorithms, presenting the popularity of offline merchants in a real and fair way. It also introduces the Sesame Credit system and AI risk - control technology to ensure the authenticity and credibility of user ratings.
AutoNavi has one billion users and the most comprehensive lifestyle service points of interest (POI). It is reported that the daily AI search volume for local lifestyle locations exceeds 120 million times, and there are 13 million navigation trips to lifestyle service destinations. AutoNavi has established a strong brand image for lifestyle services. Users clearly use AutoNavi to discover, make decisions, and visit in - store services. It is a natural move to deepen and innovate along the product brand image and user needs.
In the local lifestyle industry and the map navigation industry, there is no precedent for the AutoNavi Street - Scanning List. Its product concept and technology application are highly original. It is a "new species" that uses AI to achieve cross - border innovation.
02. Why is the Street - Scanning List a credit system?
"Trust" is in the DNA of Alibaba's platform. In 2003, Taobao and Alipay were launched one after another, creating a successful combination of "platform + credit". Taobao facilitated commodity transactions, and Alipay made transactions trustworthy and feasible. Alipay is not just a payment tool; in essence, it is a credit guarantee mechanism between buyers and sellers, effectively solving the trust problem of "who pays first, the goods or the money".
If Alipay is the credit system for online commodity consumption, the AutoNavi Street - Scanning List is the credit system for offline service consumption. Traditional lists mainly rely on user reviews and manual operation, which are easily interfered with and distorted. Merchants can get full - score reviews by offering free side dishes or desserts, and there are professional negative reviewers who maliciously give low scores. The scoring, reviews, and lists are often polluted. AutoNavi launched the Street - Scanning List to make the offline service industry trustworthy through product technology.
Different from traditional list - making, the AutoNavi Street - Scanning List doesn't require "ranking efforts". Its logic is "scanning", and the "scanners" are one billion users who "vote with their feet". Guided by AI, the AutoNavi Street - Scanning List comprehensively considers the objective behaviors and subjective evaluations of one billion users, overcoming the single - subjective dimension of traditional lists. Users' objective behaviors are the most real, such as navigating to a store, making a special trip from a long distance, or being a repeat customer. These behaviors are verified with Sesame Credit and then comprehensively scored by AI. Integrating these elements together forms a real and reliable list that can support the offline service industry as a credit system.
This system clearly boosts the entire offline consumer market. With real information as a guide, consumers can make decisions more easily, have fewer concerns when consuming, and are more willing to try new stores. A good consumption experience and strong consumption willingness can support a larger consumer market. Merchants don't need to worry about inflating scores or taking shortcuts. They can gain good reviews and make money by focusing on improving their products and services. Small - scale "charming local stores" can also be discovered by more people. This is a healthy consumer market.
03. Why was it launched at this particular time?
From the perspectives of economic development laws, technological feasibility, and industry competition, now is the best time for AutoNavi to launch the "Street - Scanning List".
According to global experience, when a country's per - capita GDP reaches $15,000, its consumption structure will shift from being dominated by commodity consumption to being dominated by service consumption at an accelerated pace. Currently, China's per - capita GDP has exceeded $13,000, and service consumption has entered a stage of rapid growth. In 2024, China's service retail sales increased by 6.2% year - on - year, 3 percentage points higher than the growth rate of commodity retail sales. The per - capita service consumption expenditure of residents increased by 7.4% year - on - year, contributing 63% to the growth of per - capita consumption expenditure.
China has great potential in service consumption. However, according to feedback from various parties, the confidence of some merchants and consumers is not strong, which is due to multiple reasons. The imperfect credit system and trust mechanism are one of the important reasons. A considerable number of service - industry merchants and consumers are trapped in the same evaluation system.
During market research, the AutoNavi team found that the problems reported by merchants and consumers were relatively concentrated. The dilemma for merchants is that the offline service industry highly depends on online customer acquisition. Currently, online traffic entrances are almost monopolized, the scoring mechanism is opaque, and operating costs are rising. Some small and medium - sized merchants are not good at online operation. Although they have won a group of loyal regular customers, their scores on the platform are very low, and new customers are discouraged, which hinders the development of their restaurants. Consumers also face difficulties. They "don't dare to trust". They know that high scores and lists are often unreliable, but they don't know what to trust without looking at scores and lists. They often end up having bad experiences. The long - standing pain points have no solutions, but the new variable of AI brings new possibilities.
In August this year, during the process of a comprehensive AI upgrade of the product, the AutoNavi team found that by applying large - language models and spatial intelligence technology and focusing on the two key elements of "behavior" and "credit", there was an opportunity to create a trustworthy offline service industry credit system. The launch of the Street - Scanning List verified this idea. To ensure authenticity, AutoNavi promised that the Street - Scanning List will "never be commercialized". Along with the Street - Scanning List, the "Support Plan for Charming Local Stores" was also launched. AutoNavi expects to bring an additional 10 million consumers to offline stores across the country every day.
AutoNavi's move in the local lifestyle in - store service business also fully aligns with Alibaba's latest strategic plan. At the earnings conference call on August 29th, Alibaba's management clearly stated that the technology and large - scale consumer platforms are two major historical strategic opportunities for Alibaba. In the instant retail war, Taobao Flash Purchase achieved a phased victory, opening up new ideas for cross - border competition in the local lifestyle service industry, rapidly changing the industry landscape of home - delivery services, and also giving AutoNavi's in - store service business a clearer opportunity.
04. Why can AutoNavi achieve this?
Looking across the entire industry, perhaps only AutoNavi can succeed in building a credit system in the service consumption sector. AutoNavi has a large number of consumers who "vote with their feet" and continuously provide real feedback based on "behavior + credit". In August this year, AutoNavi completed a comprehensive AI transformation, which is the prerequisite for the birth of the "AI new species" - the AutoNavi Street - Scanning List. Looking around the industry, only AutoNavi has both of these capabilities.
This time, AutoNavi put forward a new positioning of "the super entry for offline lifestyle services". As mentioned before, from AutoNavi's own situation, the brand image and user habits for lifestyle services have been established. Looking at the experience of other countries, using maps as a decision - making basis for offline life is already a mature model. Google Maps is currently the most important decision - making tool for in - store consumption for consumers in Europe and America. According to this year's survey data in the United States, 83% of consumers said they would use Google Maps to find local business information, and 62% said they would use Google to search for restaurants. These two figures far exceed those of vertical websites like Yelp and social platforms like Facebook.
Conclusion
September 10th is Alibaba's 26th birthday. AutoNavi chose this day to launch the "Street - Scanning List", which is both a tribute to its original intention and a step towards the future. Alibaba's original intention and mission are to "make it easy to do business anywhere", and the first principle of its values is "customers come first". Since the first day of its entrepreneurship, Alibaba has regarded small and medium - sized enterprises and merchants as its most important partners.
This time, AutoNavi's launch of the "Street - Scanning List" to support offline small and medium - sized merchants and build a credit system for the offline service industry is a return to its spirit. This time, they are targeting the more challenging and more life - related service industry.
In an internal speech in April this year, Jack Ma said, "High - tech should not only aim at conquering the stars and the sea but also care about the ordinary life on earth." Currently, Alibaba is on a development path that combines the high - end and the down - to - earth: aiming high to build the strongest cloud + AI in China and conquering the stars and the sea; and firmly investing in instant retail and the offline service industry to care about the ordinary life on earth. This is the greatest potential of Alibaba.