Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has launched a new AI-powered search engine, called “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 based on Alibaba’s proprietary large language model, Tongyi Qianwen.
The tool incorporates Alibaba International’s extensive industry data, which includes input from more than 50 million businesses and access to 1 billion product listings across more than 100 markets. Businesses can search for products using text or image suggestions and use Accio to identify products that align with their sourcing needs, using real-time data on market trends, including product popularity and expected profit margins. This feature is especially useful for SMBs looking to build or expand product lines.
Beyond simple product discovery, Accio’s capabilities extend to other critical areas in the business-to-business (B2B) sourcing process, such as logistics, order fulfillment and after-sales support.
The launch of Accio comes as Alibaba intensifies its focus on international markets amid growing competition among Chinese technology firms in the artificial intelligence sector. In early October, Alibaba’s international division introduced an AI-powered translation tool for cross-border transactions, which the company says works better than Google, DeepL and ChatGPT.
Alibaba’s AI-driven initiatives come at a time when the value of global trade is expected to reach $32 trillion, with digital penetration remaining relatively low.