On October 13, Alibaba’s digital supply chain platform 1688 announced that, starting from that day, over 100 million annual active buyers and more than 1 million original manufacturers on the platform can directly activate the global e-commerce AI workbench Accio.
After accessing Accio, buyers can not only complete purchases using it, but also operate their online businesses across the entire network with the “e-commerce housekeeper” AI agent; sellers can manage their 1688 store in one stop via Accio.
Buyers can activate it by logging in with their 1688 account on Accio. Sellers can use it after downloading “1688 Business Assistant” from Accio and binding their store. As an intelligent agent designed specifically for Class B business scenarios, “1688 Business Assistant” connects directly to the merchant backend and integrates the many years of Class B business data and AI capabilities accumulated by the 1688 platform.
As an intelligent agent for small and medium-sized enterprises worldwide, Accio means “come when called” – simply state what you want to do, and the AI will handle it for you. Unlike general AI, Accio focuses on e-commerce and business areas, covering all stages of e-commerce operations, including sourcing, inventory preparation, transactions, repeat purchases, and store management. Currently, 10 million small and medium-sized enterprise users around the world are using Accio to run their businesses.
(“1688 Business Assistant” interface in the Accio Workbench)
With full integration with Accio, small and medium-sized merchants during Double 11 can use AI for both purchasing and selling
At present, most buyers on 1688 are small and medium-sized enterprises, or even “one-person companies”. They use 1688 as their source of goods and supply chain, and their business operations cover not only platforms such as Taobao, Tmall, Redbook, Pinduoduo, and Douyin, but also extend widely to cross-border e-commerce and instant retail fields.
For this kind of combined requirement of “buying goods from the entire network and selling them across multiple platforms,” Accio has focused on introducing two features.
One is the “Purchasing Assistant”, which covers both 1688 and Alibaba International Station. Buyers can find suppliers, compare prices, and send inquiries in 128 countries and regions around the world. The other is the “E-commerce Butler”, which connects mainstream domestic e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, Tmall, Douyin, Pinduoduo, and JD.com, enabling the closed-loop completion of purchasing and store operations on the same workbench without the need to switch between them.
It is worth noting that the full integration of 1688 with Accio occurs during the Double 11 preparation period. During major promotions, small and medium-sized businesses have to make a series of uncertain decisions every day – which advertisement should be spent on? Which product might run out of stock? Should they follow up on price reductions offered by competitors? At the same time, data from different platforms “speak differently,” and often, the optimal time to handle these issues has already passed. In addition, during the major promotion, the demand for materials surges sharply. The main image, detail pages, posters, and short videos need to be updated simultaneously at various stages such as pre-warmup, opening day, climax, and repeat appearances, and the team’s pace simply cannot keep up.
What’s even more difficult is that constant tension during the major promotion period—the boss is still monitoring the data in the early hours, and everyone waits for feedback from other departments.
Accio provides solutions for these problems one by one: multi-platform data is automatically aggregated, eliminating the need for tedious manual export; store diagnosis directly outputs priority actions for the current day; advertising analysis identifies the root cause of issues, accurately determining whether it’s a product, a plan, or a budget problem; product materials are generated with one click from the original image to marketing sets, without the need to wait for design scheduling.
Launch “1688 Business Assistant” – Million-level source factories use AI to manage their entire business operations
For the source manufacturers, only a natural language instruction is required, and “1688 Business Assistant” can autonomously execute the entire business operations—from identifying hot-selling trends, intelligent product listing on platforms, advertising analysis, and serving potential customers, to multi-store management and business decision-making. It covers all stages of operating a factory.
The business models of 1688 sellers vary significantly: the spot market model (including wholesale, one-shop delivery, and distribution), the customization model (including light customization and deep customization), and the cross-border model (including integrated domestic and foreign trade, and multi-platform operation). The challenges they face are completely different.
For this purpose, Accio has developed three differentiated AI capabilities tailored to the core challenges of different types of businesses:
One is the spot goods merchants who focus on “speed and cost savings”. The key in spot goods lies in the speed of new product launch and operational efficiency. Accio can generate complete product details with one click and automatically list them, as well as optimize product materials and titles in batches, helping to increase search clicks and transaction conversions.
Second, the customized factory focuses on “specialization and precision”. The difficulty lies in professional customer service and lead conversion. Accio can learn from the enterprise knowledge base, understand customized requirements, accurately answer professional questions such as processes, delivery dates, and quotes, and also explore needs through buyer background checks. It automatically follows up on every potential business opportunity 24/7.
Thirdly, cross-border businesses focus on “full visibility and transparency”. The challenges of cross-border operations lie in managing multiple stores and making business decisions. Accio directly connects data from various platforms, and provides daily dashboards for multiple stores. It shows where profits are made, where losses occur, and where resources should be invested first, allowing managers to see the overall business situation clearly and make quick decisions.