Alibaba.com is handing more of the B2B sourcing process for ecommerce sellers over to agentic artificial intelligence (AI).
The marketplace said its latest plugin can find suppliers, compare offers and keep negotiations moving 24/7 without constant manual follow-up. Called the Accio Sourcing Toolkit, the plugin runs inside Accio Work, Alibaba’s platform for carrying out business tasks through specialized AI agents.
Among its original capabilities, Accio Work could generate requests for quotations and conduct multiple rounds of supplier negotiations. Alibaba told Digital Commerce 360 that the new toolkit builds on those features with “a dedicated sourcing agent that is deeply integrated with Alibaba.com’s sourcing ecosystem.”
One of the biggest additions, it said, is autonomous 24/7 follow-up with suppliers. After the initial outreach, an agent “can continue engaging suppliers across time zones, proactively follow up on unanswered requests, gather missing information, refine requirements as conversations evolve and keep negotiations moving until the buyer has the information needed to make a decision,” Alibaba said.
Importantly, the agent cannot close deals on its own. Users must still approve pricing, commercial terms and purchase orders before submission, Alibaba said. Payments also require explicit user confirmation.
“The founder still makes the decision,” Kuo Zhang, president of Alibaba.com, wrote in a LinkedIn post introducing the new toolkit. “AI just handles the repetitive coordination that used to take over the evening.”
Alibaba.com is Alibaba Group’s global B2B marketplace. It is part of a broader ecommerce portfolio that includes Taobao and Tmall, the world’s two largest online marketplaces by gross merchandise value (GMV).
Taobao ranks No. 1 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest such marketplaces by GMV. Tmall ranks No. 2. Both platforms operate in China and primarily serve the Chinese market.
How Alibaba’s agentic AI sourcing plugin for B2B works
The company said the new toolkit “consolidates the full sourcing journey, from product discovery and supplier communication to final payment, in a single interface.”
To get started, buyers enter requirements for the products they want to source, such as target pricing, lead times and specifications. Accio’s agent then identifies matching suppliers and contacts multiple companies at once. As replies arrive, it compares offers, follows up on missing details and negotiates around the clock within the buyer’s parameters, according to Alibaba.
The toolkit communicates with suppliers through Alibaba.com’s messaging system. Accio Work can also use connected services such as email when authorized by the user.
The company noted that negotiations can extend beyond prices to include sample costs, production lead times, minimum order quantities and shipping terms. The agent can also use the best terms from one supplier as a reference point in talks with others. Throughout the process, the agent retains context across supplier conversations and can adjust when a buyer’s requirements change.
“If the specs change, the agent can update the open conversations at once,” Zhang said.
Alibaba said the toolkit also uses third-party market data, information on more than 100 million products and skills built on more than 20 years of trade expertise.
Users can now install the toolkit through Accio Work’s Plugin Channel and link their Alibaba.com accounts.
AI growth drives Alibaba’s enterprise push
The new plugin is part of a larger push by Alibaba to commercialize AI across its ecommerce and cloud businesses.
In March, the company upgraded Accio into Accio Work, a broader AI agent platform for small and medium-sized businesses.
Then, in April, the company reported that more than 230,000 businesses had deployed its AI agent teams. Accio Work now has more than 10 million monthly active users, according to Alibaba.
During its fiscal Q4 ended March 31, Alibaba’s AI-related product revenue reached roughly $1.32 billion, Digital Commerce 360 previously reported. That marked the company’s 11th consecutive quarter of triple-digit year-over-year growth.
During the same quarter, Cloud Intelligence Group revenue increased 38% to approximately $6.04 billion.
“We are at a pivotal inflection point in the evolution from conversational chatbots to autonomous AI agents, which is directly driving explosive growth across three core workload categories: training, inference and agent orchestration,” Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu told analysts on the company’s earnings call.
Wu added that Alibaba expects AI-related products to account for more than half of Cloud Intelligence Group revenue in about a year.
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