Alibaba to embed AI throughout Taobao, Tmall merchant operations in 2027: executive

Alibaba Group Holding’s two major domestic online marketplaces, Taobao and Tmall, plan to greatly expand the use of artificial intelligence across merchants’ operations next year, a senior executive said, as the e-commerce giant doubles down on the technology to drive growth amid a challenging consumer landscape.

“Starting next year, AI will comprehensively enter the internal enterprise workflows of merchants,” Liu Bo, president of Tmall, said at the company’s Singles’ Day media briefing on Thursday.

An important product driving the push would be Qwen Work, Alibaba’s enterprise AI assistant, Liu added. The e-commerce version of the assistant began testing earlier this week and is designed for merchants selling across multiple platforms.

The move comes after the roll-out of AI on Taobao and Tmall over the past year “exceeded expectations”, Liu said, adding that merchants were already using platform-level AI tools for product launches, advertising and customer service.