Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has launched a new artificial intelligence-powered search engine, named "Accio", aimed at helping small businesses in Europe and the Americas source supplies more efficiently.
Named after the summoning spell from the Harry Potter series, Accio is available in multiple languages, including English, German, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. It is a web-based platform powered by Alibaba’s proprietary large language model, Tongyi Qianwen.
The tool incorporates Alibaba International’s extensive industry data, which includes input from over 50 million businesses and access to 1 billion product listings across more than 100 markets. Businesses can search for products using text or image prompts and use Accio to identify products that align with their sourcing needs, using real-time data on market trends, including product popularity and projected profit margins. This functionality is particularly useful for SMEs looking to build or expand product lines.
Beyond basic product discovery, Accio’s capabilities extend to other critical areas in the business-to-business (B2B) sourcing process, such as logistics, fulfilment, and after-sales support.
The launch of Accio comes as Alibaba intensifies its focus on international markets amidst growing competition among Chinese tech firms in the AI space. Earlier in October, Alibaba’s international arm introduced an enhanced AI-powered translation tool for cross-border transactions, which the company claims performs better than Google, DeepL, and ChatGPT.
Alibaba’s AI-driven initiatives come at a time when the value of global trade is projected to reach US$32 trillion, with digital penetration remaining relatively low.
