Alibaba Unveils World’s First AI-Powered Conversational Sourcing Engine
Leveraging the latest advancements in AI technology, Alibaba International’s new sourcing engine is laser-focused on B2B ecommerce.
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Alibaba International announced the launch of a groundbreaking AI-powered conversational sourcing engine, anticipated to make its debut this September. This sourcing engine is set to revolutionise the global sourcing process for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), making it more intuitive and highly efficient.
A Sourcing Engine Dedicated to B2B Ecommerce
Leveraging the latest advancements in AI technology, Alibaba International’s new sourcing engine is laser-focused on B2B ecommerce. It synthesises vast quantities of information, interprets sourcing needs using natural language processing, matches buyers with products and suppliers with unprecedented accuracy, and provides advanced tools for seamless sourcing decision-making.
The new conversational sourcing engine has been fine-tuned using over one billion product listings and industry-specific knowledge compiled from Alibaba platforms and beyond.
Designed specifically to overcome the complexities inherent in traditional B2B ecommerce navigation, this innovative solution tackles the inefficiencies of conventional search methodologies which are often time-consuming, manually intensive, and involve laborious data categorisation processes merely to locate suitable business partners and products.
Kuo Zhang, President of Alibaba.com, shared in media interviews in Paris during the Olympics, “Traditional search engines evaluate web page importance through interlinking, credibility and ad spend. In this AI era, the B2B sourcing engine offers an intuitive and organic way to query, as well as rapidly and accurately match business buyers and business sellers based on their proven track record.”
A Whole New Experience for B2B Global Trade
Unlike traditional search methods where buyers and sellers sift through webpages and manually summarise information, Alibaba International’s new AI-powered sourcing engine is set to redefine the user experience in global trade. Highlights of the new sourcing engine include:
- Intuitive, Predictive, and Conversational
This B2B sourcing engine will be the first of its kind to integrate all ecommerce storefronts across the internet. Unlike traditional search engines, which rely heavily on simple ranking and indexing, this AI-powered sourcing engine will focus on understanding natural language and transforming it into professional sourcing requests. It can even predict sourcing needs and provide suggestions. It also allows complex queries or full documents as inputs, and the system will distinguish and respond to them in natural language.
- Reconstruction of Information.
Ecommerce has traditionally used product listings with titles, descriptions, keywords, and pictures. However, business buyers often need to compare multiple suppliers. This AI-powered sourcing engine will reorganise such information to enable direct, custom-made, and side-by-side comparisons.
- Closing the Loop
Building the conversational search function is just one part of the solution. The end goal is to enable business deals. By leveraging 25 years of expertise in digitalising various trade aspects — products, payments, logistics, customs, and currency exchanges – AI can now mimic the experience of having a sourcing professional by your side. This technology can level the playing field and significantly reduce costs, enabling SMEs to become integral players in the global supply chain.
Continued Effort in AI
Last November, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group introduced its generative artificial intelligence (AI) toolkit, branded “Aidge,” which has been adopted by approximately 500,000 merchants, with daily API usage reaching 50 million calls. Deployed across over 40 ecommerce scenarios including product listing refinement, marketing, customer service, and automation, AI has significantly boosted content quality, click-through rates, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction. Notable features include a virtual try-on tool for apparel and a 24/7 AI customer service capability, which increased AliExpress Choice’s conversion rates from pre-sales inquiries by 29% in June.
