Alibaba’s new AI agent to ‘revolutionise’ how merchants source goods online

Alibaba Group Holding’s international commerce arm on Thursday released an artificial intelligence agent to help merchants source products and supplies, a development that could change the way online business is conducted.

The Accio Agent unveiled by Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group (AIDC) was designed to “revolutionise international commerce” by automating 70 per cent of the traditional time-consuming work, including product ideation, prototyping, compliance checks and supplier sourcing, the company said in a statement.

The AI agent marks a step forward in the process of “agentic purchase”, which is the use of AI agents to handle everything from product discovery to fulfilment. It could fundamentally change existing models of online search, advertising and e-commerce as tech giants such as Amazon.com roll out their own agents.

Alibaba said the agent could reduce weeks of market research and product sourcing work to just a few minutes. This would cut costs and speed up tasks for merchants, some of whom are small and medium-sized businesses run by solo entrepreneurs, enabling them to streamline their operations.

“[Accio Agent] is designed to help you do business,” Zhang Kuo, vice-president at AIDC, said, adding that it could handle multiple tasks simultaneously and operate like a team of professionals such as sourcing specialists, developers and engineers, and market researchers.