Google, Shopee-owner Sea to develop AI tools for e-commerce, gaming

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)