Ant Group’s AI Revolution: Beyond Alipay

John B. Quinn (0:03)

Welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for coming to hear this and see this live edition of Law, disrupted from Shanghai. This will be the first time we've done the podcast in Shanghai. We did it two podcasts last year in Beijing. We're really so happy to be here. Thank you for coming on a weekend on such a beautiful day to come doors and hear the podcast. Also, thank you all for being interested in following the podcast. It always amazes me when I go around the world, and people I don't know tell me, I listen to your podcast. It's a testament to how international law is, that people around the world are interested in the same topics.

So, we really appreciate your support in following the podcast. And you're coming here today.

Today, we have a very special podcast, which I'm super excited to bring to you. And this is a podcast with Jonathan Zhou. Thank you, John. The Chief Legal Officer and Secretary, as I understand, of the Board of Directors of Ant Financial. It's a great privilege and we're very appreciative to Jonathan for coming here and being with us here today.

Jonathan Zhou (1:28)

Thanks for inviting me.

John B. Quinn (1:30)

So, I think, I mean, Ant Financial doesn't really need much of an introduction, I'm sure, to this audience. But I learned in talking to Jonathan, I did learn some things I didn't know about the kinds of businesses they're in, such as health care, and helping doctors diagnose illnesses and things. Maybe you could just, for everybody who isn't familiar, kind of give us a rundown on what the business of Ant Financial is.

Jonathan Zhou (1:55)

Okay. Hi, everyone. Thanks, John.

Thanks for having me here.

I think people here, everyone probably knows Alipay, right? So and it's a bit sad. We have changed the name to Ant Technology for six to seven years, but people still call us Ant Financial. So that's a label. We are trying very hard to get rid of it, but it's proven not very successful. So maybe I can give you a quick snapshot of what we are doing. So this year is the 21st year of Ant Group. We started with Alipay as part of the Taobao. So I guess all the female audience here, if you love Taobao, you probably have to use Alipay.

In the first 10 years of the company history, we do one thing, it's payment. So we do online payment to make e-commerce possible. Absent payment, online payment, you can't shop online. And then we moved to mobile. So now you can use mobile to pay anywhere in the country. And probably it will be the case, you can use your mobile to pay anywhere in the world. Now, at least if in Hong Kong, in Japan, in some Asia cities, you can use mobile payment as you can do here in Shanghai. So the first 10 years we do payment. And then the second 10 years we do, the one thing we do is the so-called financial inclusion. So we provide micro loans to entrepreneurs without any mortgage, without any credit history. We use our data technology, we use our digital technologies to provide loans to entrepreneurs.

As of now, we have served almost 80 million small and medium companies in China. And also we provide wealth management services to almost everyone with Urebox. It's one of the many market products we launched. So in the second 10 years, we provide financial services to those underserved, or to those who are unable to get same level of attention in a big bank. So that's what we have been doing. And that has made some change to the city. Probably, you know, I think a lot of people here are young, but for those who are above 40, you probably have the experience. If you want to pay a bill in a bank in Shanghai in 1990s, you probably need to queue for at least one hour in a bank's retail office. Now you just click, then it's done. That's what we do in the second 10 years. Now we are moving to the third 10 years. And then we realized, so the technology is neutral. It can be applied in financial services to serve those underserved. It can also be deployed in other sectors. And we see, you know, health sector is one of the factors people are underserved, particularly for people who don't have the privilege to live in the cities like Beijing and the Shanghai. And if you live in rural areas, you know, the level of medical services is poor and the doctors don't have sufficient experience. So for big diseases, people still come to Shanghai, come to Beijing, right? We see the long queue in hospitals in Shanghai. So we see the technologies, particularly AI, can help the doctors to improve the quality of medical service diagnosis in rural areas, to serve those unserved. And of course, you know, the technologies we acquired in the last two decades can also be applied in the other areas. For example, we also launched a to-be business.