Alibaba had to wow investors with its earnings report Friday—and came close, but not necessarily how it thought it would. Shares rose after the Chinese online retailer reported an AI boost to its cloud business which came at the right time to help it overcome a slump in consumer spending. Revenue from Alibaba’s cloud business grew 7% to 29.6 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) in its fiscal second quarter compared with the same period last year.