Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company has acquired an Israeli startup, Infinity Augmented Reality. Now, why would an e-commerce giant buy an AR startup, their field of interest seem to be so apart from each other?
Even though it seems that way, it is not the case as Alibaba has been showing interest in AR and VR as early as 2016. This is when Alibaba invested in two major VR and AR companies Magic Leap and Infinity AR.
Alibaba’s vision is to merge AR and VR into its e-commerce platform. They have built a research lab in China solely to explore the ways in which AR and VR can be incorporated into the system, taking online shopping experience into the next level.
Infinity AR pioneers in building AR development platform for developers so that they can build AR experiences easily. The InfinityAR Engine is a solid platform for developers to build AR apps not just for a specific device, but a whole host of devices such as wearables, and mobile devices.
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So, it makes sense that Alibaba wants to buy this company as it makes it that much easier for Alibaba to make their own apps that would enable AR assisted shopping.
The team at InfinityAR will start working at Alibaba’s Israel machine vision laboratory. The transaction is slated to cost Alibaba more than $10 million. Mr. Lihi Zelnik-Manor, Lab head at the Machine Vision Laboratory stated “The talented team brings unique know-how in sensor fusion, computer vision, and navigation technologies,”
So, it’s safe to say that Alibaba is betting quite a lot on AR and the future of AR in shopping. We have already seen how AR can impact shopping in various industries. For example, IKEA has their AR app that lets you try out virtual furniture are your home before buying them so that you know what you are buying and how it looks when placed in your home.
Kabaq is another company with AR apps that lets the user see the food on their plates in AR before buying them. Certainly, the possibilities are endless, and China’s largest e-commerce company might have something better in works.