Alibaba International has launched Accio Agent, an invite‑only upgrade to its Accio B2B search engine that it says turns the service into an agentic workflow manager for international procurement, automating market research, supplier vetting and other sourcing tasks and raising questions about transparency, vendor dependence and regulatory oversight.
Alibaba International has unveiled what it describes as the world’s first “AI agent for global trade”, rolling the capability into its Accio B2B search engine as the platform passes two million users. The company announced the launch of “Accio Agent” on 14 August 2025 and said the upgrade converts the service from an AI‑assisted sourcing tool into a fully agentic workflow manager for international procurement.
According to the announcement, Accio Agent lets users submit a product concept and then generates an end‑to‑end development plan that the system can execute with a single approval. The company said the agent automates up to seventy per cent of tasks it characterises as traditionally manual — from market research, regulatory checks and prototyping to supplier vetting, bulk requests for quotation and comparative analyses — and then connects buyers with pre‑vetted sellers on Alibaba’s b2b marketplace. The firm also stated the agent was trained on one billion product listings and fifty million supplier profiles to inform its recommendations and decision logic.
Kuo Zhang, vice president of Alibaba International, is quoted in the company statement as saying the tool “can handle multiple tasks simultaneously, operating like a team of dedicated professionals — sourcing agents, product developers, engineers, and market researchers — all working together to grow your business.”
The announcement frames the product as a response to the rising number of small and solo‑run businesses seeking faster, lower‑cost access to global supply chains. The Accio website presents Agent mode as an invite‑controlled feature that centralises sourcing tasks and offers natural‑language search, supplier discovery and automation of routine procurement workflows.
Independent reporting and market research highlight both the appeal and the limits of that pitch. Coverage earlier this year noted Accio’s rapid adoption: the platform reached one million users within five months of its launch, signalling brisk uptake among buyers and sellers. Analysts also point to the broader commercial opportunity: one industry forecast estimates the AI in e‑commerce market at roughly seven and three‑quarter billion US dollars in 2025, with rapid projected growth over the coming decade. Separately, a global trade update shows world trade reached about thirty‑three trillion US dollars in 2024, underscoring the scale of the market Accio is addressing.
Yet observers warn that agentic commerce raises practical and policy questions. Reporting on the product launch flagged potential frictions around supply‑chain transparency and how automated sourcing might alter advertising and platform economics. Market analysts have also highlighted familiar limits for AI adoption, including data privacy concerns, the need for domain expertise to validate outputs, and skills shortages that can impede effective deployment.
Accio’s reliance on Alibaba’s datasets and models is another point of note. Earlier coverage said the platform draws on the company’s foundational technologies and multilingual search capabilities; critics caution that close integration with a single marketplace may create dependence for buyers and sellers and complicate interoperability with other procurement systems.
The company’s claims about time savings and workflow automation are measurable only with deployment‑level evidence, and some of the efficiencies it describes are likely to vary by sector, product complexity and regulatory environment. Regulators and procurement professionals typically require human oversight on compliance and technical specification checks — areas where automated agents could reduce effort but not fully remove the need for expert review.
Accio Agent is available by switching to Agent mode on the platform, which remains an invite‑based feature for now. Alibaba International framed the release as part of its broader push to embed AI across digital trade services; independent observers say the product will be watched closely both for immediate commercial uptake among SMEs and for how it shapes procurement practices and platform dynamics as agentic tools proliferate.
Source: Noah Wire Services
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