Our dedication to achieving our long-term objectives and creating enduring value for shareholders remains resolute. The ongoing efforts to optimize operational efficiency and leverage our resources will persist as integral components of our strategic roadmap. With a proactive mindset and unwavering resolve, we are well positioned to surmount the current obstacles and emerge stronger in the forthcoming quarters. Next page, we list key financial metrics of 2023. We summarized IFRS and non-IFRS gross margin results for reference. Lastly, and once again, I would extend my sincere appreciation to our employees, shareholders and partners for their invaluable support and trust in our vision. Together, we will navigate through challenges, capitalize on opportunities and drive sustainable growth and success.
Thank you. Back to you, Rick.
Rick Chan: Thank you, Mr. Luo. Operator, we are open for questions.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We have a question from Lydia Lin of Morgan Stanley. Lydia, the line is yours.
Lydia Lin: [Foreign Language] So the first question is we have seen very impressive progress of cutting costs in 2023. And how do we see the further space that the company can cut cost in 2024 and work for kinds of specific measures that the company has? And the second question is I would like to have the management help us to summarize the Generative AI application in the company’s product profile? And what is the impact from this technology? Thank you.
Rick Chan: Thanks, Lydia. The first question will be taken by Mr. Luo and the second one taken by our CTO, Li Jie.
Luo Yongtao: [Foreign Language] Thank you for your question. So in 2023, through headcount optimization improvement in delivery efficiency and reduction in expenses from R&D, sales and marketing and [Technical Difficulty] we have greatly improved our costs — and we have greatly reduced our cost and improved metrics such as financial — such as our gross profit margin and all this can be seen from our financial metrics. [Foreign Language] For next year, we will continue with our cost control and efficiency improvement measures and reduced costs in R&D, S&M and as well as G&A. [Foreign Language] Additionally, for the investment of our resources. Next year, on the one hand, we will continue to improve resource allocation, efficiency and fine-tune our ROI management.
On the other hand, we will aggregate our resources on quality products, continue to develop and upgrade products according to our development demand and ensure our competitiveness in the market. [Foreign Language] Cost control ultimately comes down to the sustainable development of our business. Therefore, we will use our resources more efficiently. That means we may invest in more promising business lines, for instance, our overseas business. Thank you.
Li Jie: [Foreign Language] I’ll answer your question about the — about OneConnect applications of AI and its impact. This year, the government’s work report included AI Plus for the first time. which not only shows increasing importance of AI in China’s development, but also bought more significant changes in our everyday life. Artificial intelligence plus is the broader concept, which refers to artificial intelligence as a basic and driving technical force and the deep integration of manufacturing, finance, medical care, education, transportation, agriculture and other fields. So as to promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. [Foreign Language] The financial industry has the best use cases for Artificial Intelligence plus and will be a strategic focus for new force productivity.
OneConnect has been committed to empower financial industry upgrade and transformation, focused on serving our Premium Plus customers and product improvement as well as to satisfy the core demand of financial institutions for various business productivity improvements. We provide products featuring new force productivity such as AI customer service and omnichannel agent solution so as to improve efficiency and service, reduce costs and risks for financial institutions. [Foreign Language] OneConnect has long developed strong capacity in artificial intelligence. We have won the championship of well-known competition at home and abroad such as the third and fifth Chinese machine reading comprehension evaluation, the free tax extraction track of the international semantic assessment competition.
At a time when larger models see further breakthroughs, our AI team is also actively deploying the exploration and R&D of related technologies. Thank you.
Operator: Our next question comes from Yixuan Li of Guotai Junan. Yixuan, please go ahead.
Yixuan Li: [Foreign Language]
Rick Chan: The first question will be taken by our CTO, Li Jie, and the second one will taken by Mr. Shen.
Li Jie: [Foreign Language] Firstly, I’ll address your question about utilizing Generative AI. OneConnect aims to apply AI capacities in all links of the financial industry business. So we offer a fine-tuned financial scenario AI experience to our customers. [Foreign Language] Our AI customer service solution covers customer service, sales and marketing as well as scenarios such as interviewing. For instance, our AI interview robot offers over 20 dialogue and image risk capacities through vivid human digital interactions, we help our customers to improve risk management efficiency. Another example will be our wealth management tax robot, which offers over 30 content templates and support preset scripts. So all these solutions will help our customers to improve their conversion rate.
Rick Chan: Go ahead, Mr. Shen.
Shen Chong Feng: [Foreign Language] The adjustments made by both Ping An Group and Ping An Bank are measures to cope with changing market trends. [Foreign Language] Our relationship and cooperation with both Ping An Group and its associated companies remains unchanged. [Foreign Language] The group is still our most important internal customer and also our most important tech partner. [Foreign Language] Our in-depth cooperation with the group and its associated company aligns our interest together and it’s sustainable but all sites are happy with our corporation and relationship. [Foreign Language] Internal adjustments actually bring us new business opportunities as we will be involved in many important projects. [Foreign Language] Thank you.
Operator: We have no further questions on the line. So I’ll hand back to Rick for closing remarks.
Rick Chan: Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. If any questions, feel free to contact our IR team and appreciate your interest in following us and look forward to speaking to you again.
Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.
