JAKARTA, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s Google and Southeast Asian technology conglomerate Sea Ltd announced a new tie-up on Thursday that will develop artificial intelligence tools for Sea’s e-commerce and gaming products.
Under the newly-signed strategic partnership, the two companies will jointly “explore the building of an AI agentic shopping prototype” on Sea’s e-commerce platform Shopee, they said in a statement.
The move is part of the efforts by global tech firms to monetise their AI models by promoting capabilities beyond simply answering questions and executing a much wider range of tasks from shopping on different apps to managing complex workflows.
China’s Alibaba, whose Lazada e-commerce platform competes with Shopee in Southeast Asia, released a new AI model earlier this week that it described as being built “for the agentic AI era.”
Shopee was the most dominant e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia with a 52% market share in 2024, according to a report by consultancy Momentum Works.
Google and Sea’s gaming unit Garena will also use AI solutions to “transform” the productivity of game development, both companies said.
The partnerships follow a 2024 tie-up between Shopee and Alphabet’s YouTube in the Southeast Asian e-commerce market.
(Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Editing by Miyoung Kim)
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