21世纪经济报道·2025-10-23 13:26Core Viewpoint - Alibaba's flagship app Quark has officially launched a dialogue assistant, marking the implementation of the long-rumored "C Plan," which integrates AI dialogue functions directly into its search product, positioning Alibaba in direct competition with ByteDance's Doubao in the AI landscape [1][5]. Group 1: C Plan and Quark's Features - The "C Plan" has been interpreted in various ways, with one interpretation suggesting "C" stands for "Chat," indicating a new dialogue form, while another interpretation links it to the classic game "Pac-Man," targeting Doubao as a competitor [5]. - Quark's new dialogue assistant allows users to access a range of features including Q&A, search, image recognition, text extraction, AI writing, and photo-based question answering, all within the app [5][6]. - The assistant aims to address common issues in current AI assistants, such as high hallucination rates and cumbersome information verification, striving to be a more reliable AI that understands search better [5][6]. Group 2: Competitive Landscape - Historically, users have had to switch between search engines for objective information and AI chat assistants for in-depth discussions, reflecting the different foundational approaches of Alibaba and ByteDance [6]. - Quark's launch of the dialogue assistant represents a convergence of these two paths, integrating search engine capabilities with verifiable AI dialogue within a single app [6]. - In the global AI application competition, Quark ranks ninth and Doubao ranks twelfth according to a report by venture capital firm A16z, indicating that they are close competitors [6]. Group 3: Ecosystem Competition - The competition between Quark and Doubao extends to the underlying ecosystems, with Alibaba aiming to create an "AI super entry" through its product matrix, including browsers and AI glasses, while ByteDance focuses on an entertainment-driven traffic loop through its apps [7].