[3] In January 2016, Ke won the 2nd MLily Cup, defeating world renowned Go player Lee Sedol in the fifth round.

[4] According to South Korean 9 dan professionals commenting on the final game, the result hinged on a half-point ko and the peculiarities of Chinese scoring rules; however, others have pointed out that this argument is misleading as differences in komi between the Chinese and Japanese scoring systems would have made up the extra point, leading to the same result.

[9][10] In August 2016, at the 3rd Bailing Cup, Ke defeated Xu Jiayang to advance to the best-of-three semifinal match where he faced Won Seong-jin.

In the decisive third game, he continued to make advantageous moves during the middle-game and maintained a comfortable territorial lead.

In the first game, Chen displayed his tenacity in chasing and eventually leading in territory with very few opportunities for Ke to win in the endgame.

From 31 October 2016 to 2 November 2016, Ke played against rival Lee Sedol once more during the semifinals of the 21st Samsung Cup.

[12][13] Ke reached the finals of 1st ENN Cup, defeating Ahn Kuk-hyun, Tang Weixing, Ida Atsushi, Lian Xiao and Li Zhe, from November 2016 to May 2017.

[15] On 4 June 2016, at a news conference during the 37th World Amateur Go Championship, Yang Jun'an, the party chief of the Zhongguo Qiyuan and executive of the International Go Federation, revealed that the Google program AlphaGo would possibly have a match against Ke in the future.

[17] In early January 2017, Ke Jie played three unofficial online games against "Master", an updated version of AlphaGo, losing all three.

After his defeat to AlphaGo, Ke Jie studied the program's games to find inspiration for new strategies, and adopted a territory-oriented style of play.

Ke's opening arsenal is deeply influenced by the new generation of Go programs, namely AlphaGo, FineArt, Zen and CGI.