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Alibaba to roll out AI agents for Taobao, Tmall merchants
Alibaba plans to roll out AI agents for merchants on its Taobao and Tmall marketplaces by the end of March as it steps up its use of automated tools for sellers.
The service will be built on its Business Advisor merchant tool and is designed to automate tasks such as customer service, voucher distribution, and real-time price changes.
Alibaba previewed the feature to merchants at Tmall’s TopTalk summit in Shanghai. Xu Haipeng, who oversees merchant platforms at Taobao and Tmall, said advances in execution-focused AI are enabling more collaboration between humans and automated systems in online retail.
🔗 Source: South China Morning Post
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
This AI agent builds on work already in place
- Alibaba plans the agent as the next step for Taobao and Tmall sellers, built on tools it already runs 1.
- During 2024, it launched ten AI tools for merchants, ranging from marketing image creation to business analytics 1.
- Usage was high during the 11.11 shopping festival (Alibaba’s annual Singles’ Day sales event), with merchants calling these tools more than 1.5 billion times 1.
- It already offers Qwen-powered “Ali Xiaomi” (a merchant-facing customer service chatbot) for small and medium-sized merchants that need 24-hour customer service, plus Business Advisor for AI-driven insights on consumer demand and competitor activity, which the new service is expected to build on and integrate with 1.
Automated stores raise the stakes in global e-commerce
- Automating customer service and pricing can cut the cost of running an online store, which fits CEO Eddie Wu’s plan for a marketplace where brands and merchants can succeed 1.
- Investment is rising fast. For the quarter ending September 30, 2025, Alibaba said capital expenditures jumped 85% year over year to RMB 31.4 billion (about US$4.4 billion), tied to cloud infrastructure and the Qwen ecosystem 2.
- International commerce revenue grew 29% in fiscal year 2025, which opens a path to bring these China-built AI efficiencies to sellers in other markets 2.
- Rivals such as Amazon and Shopify may need comparable low-cost AI features for merchants, with competition moving away from manual store work toward product and brand strategy.
