The new CEO of Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) (HK: 9988), Wu Yongming, released a full staff letter on Tuesday (12th), clarifying Alibaba's strategic priorities and action guidelines for the future. He proposed two major focuses: user first and AI driven.

He said, "The group will organize its business around these two major focuses and reshape its business strategic priorities

Wu Yongming stated that the biggest variable in the next decade is undoubtedly the profound industry wide transformation brought about by AI. We must have the determination to start again in the AI era and reshape user value in order to have the opportunity to continue serving customers in the next decade... If we cannot keep up with the changes in the AI era, there will definitely be new species replacing Alibaba.

In recent years, Alibaba has faced increasingly fierce competition from e-commerce platforms such as Pinduoduo (NASDAQ: PDD) and JD (NASDAQ: JD), as well as social media such as Tiktok under ByteDance to enter the e-commerce industry.

Meanwhile, in the emerging field of AI, established companies such as Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) (HK: 9888) have also been deeply involved in AI for many years and have made significant investments.

However, facing all-round competition and the rise of new fields, Alibaba has just emerged from the dark clouds of antitrust in recent years, and the unexpected resignation of former CEO Zhang Yong has also exacerbated the company's uncertainty.