Generative AI offerings breathing new life into myriad of Vietnamese industries, illustration photo/ Source: freepik.com

Cho Tot, a Vietnamese online marketplace for the purchase and sale of automobiles, debuted its Smart Posting software at the Google Cloud Summit in Singapore on October 17.

The company’s data director Pham Thoi Dinh Thien said, “We want to simplify and expedite the process of listing used cars for sale in online marketplaces. Now, clients only need to take three straightforward steps: photograph the vehicle, upload the image, and list it for sale. This procedure takes less than one minute to complete.”

In the past, it typically took vendors 10-15 minutes to fill in vehicle information and parameters, price the vehicle relative to the market, and create compelling sales content.

Thien stated that Cho Tot, an online sales channel with over 10 million users in Vietnam, is striving to establish a rapid and expedient vehicle listing experience for secondary market users in order to “increase market liquidity”.

The spike in the used car market is a result of the thriving new vehicle market. According to Mordor Intelligence, the ratio of used cars to new cars sold in Vietnam is only about 0.5, which is significantly lower than the ratio of new cars to used cars sold throughout Southeast Asia, which is 1.2.

Cho Tot may require additional time to finish the Smart Posting app, but GenAI will serve as an instrument to assist owner Carousell Group in standardising Vietnam’s market data.

According to the National Institute of Patent and Technology Exploitation, approximately 2.2 billion Gb of new data (equivalent to 165 trillion pages) are developed and gathered daily by companies such as Google, Meta, Amazon, Baidu, Weibo, Tencent, and Alibaba.

Google has invested heavily in research into Gen AI applications – a type of AI that can generate new content, such as text, code, and images, based on computers’ self-learning ability – across a number of initiatives, including Google Cloud Security AI Workbench, Duet AI in Security Command Centre, VirusTotal Code analytics, and security controls.

“These efforts aim to make security solutions more accessible, effective, and affordable,” said Mark Johnston, director of Google’s office of the chief information security officer for Asia-Pacific, at the Google Cloud Summit.

Johnston asserts that innovative GenAI is already transforming the retail, cybersecurity, entertainment, and manufacturing industries. GenAI is capable of analysing extensive security data sets, thereby identifying hazards that humans may have missed. The ability to swiftly and effectively detect and respond to hazards is a key benefit. It can automate responses to these threats, such as barring malicious network traffic or isolating compromised devices.

The presenters at the Google Cloud Summit did not conceal their interest in Vietnam, a market that aims to become the ASEAN AI hub by 2030.

In Vietnam, Google Cloud is reaffirming its commitment to enabling businesses of all sizes to develop and deploy AI applications. Last week, the Google Cloud for AI Startups programme has been made available to cover cloud costs of up to $350,000 over the next two years.

The initiative offers pre-seed AI-first ventures up to $2,000 in Google Cloud credit to finance the development of their product’s first beta iteration and introduce it to investors and potential customers.

Nguyen Duc Toan, country manager for Vietnam at Google Cloud Platform, said Google gives the Vietnamese market a high priority when introducing new technology applications.

“The implementation of GenAI in Vietnam is entirely appropriate in terms of policy and infrastructure, given its current state. Vietnam has an excellent telecommunications infrastructure and is among the top nations with high-speed fibre optic cable and broadband systems,” Toan said.

“Vietnam’s 4G is among the most affordable in the world. These are the key advantages of deploying AI or GenAI applications. Even with an established infrastructure, the GenAI application on mobile phones in Vietnam will be significantly more accessible than in other nations,” he added.

Data and the manager’s mindset is a significant barrier that Vietnamese businesses must surmount when implementing GenAI, according to Toan.

Businesses must also consider finances, including investment costs and potential profits, when implementing GenAI applications. In comparison to the initial cost of deploying technology, labour costs are relatively inexpensive.

“Currently, the Vietnamese government has stepped up the digital transformation of the nation, including big data and AI, which allows businesses to deploy AI applications, and Google is looking forward to being endorsed to accelerate this progress,” Toan added.