Is AliExpress fading into the background? Alibaba prefers to focus on AI

Chinese technology giant Alibaba is undergoing one of the greatest transformations in its history. Over the course of 2025, the company significantly downsized, reducing its workforce by approximately 34%. At the end of December, 128,197 people worked in the companywhile a year earlier it was over 194,000. Such a visible change is the result of deep restructuring and shifting priorities towards artificial intelligence.

Staff changes coincided with significant deterioration of financial results. In the latest quarterly report, the company recorded a drop in profit by as much as 67%, and revenues turned out to be lower than market expectations. The reaction from investors was immediate – Alibaba shares listed in Hong Kong lost about 6% during today’s session.

The company is part of a broader trend – all the largest technology concerns are reducing employment and simplifying structures. In the case of the Chinese, however, this is a more radical process than before. Just a year ago, the scale of reduction was approximately 11%, and now it is three times more.

Alibaba wants to transform itself into a full-fledged AI companycovering the entire technological chain from semiconductor production to cloud models and services. This week, the company presented agent-based AI for business called “Wukong”and at the same time increased the prices of cloud services and data storage, explaining this by growing demand.

president of the company, Eddie Wuclearly outlined his ambitions for the coming years. Alibaba wants cloud and AI revenues to exceed $100 billion annually within 5 years. This is an ambitious goal, but contrary to appearances, it is achievable. Especially looking at the results of companies such as NVIDIAalthough in their case we are talking about hardware, not services and software.