Alibaba International today has launched its AI solution to enhance global e-commerce operations – Alibaba International Marco (hereafter referred to as “Marco”).
Developed by Alibaba International’s AI Business team in 2024 with the goal of empowering SMBs in cross-border trade, Marco provides comprehensive assistance to e-commerce merchants across Alibaba’s ecosystem, handling over 60 specific tasks across marketing, marketplace compliance, and customer service. The solution operates in more than 40+ languages, offering capabilities such as listing translation, content generation, and image creation capabilities at a lower operational cost than major peers while maintaining high performance.
Unprecedented Adoption
Demand for Alibaba International’s AI services has surged dramatically, primarily powered by Marco. Daily API invocations with its AI system by Chinese merchants in Alibaba International have exceeded 1 billion as of July 2025 – a thousand-fold increase from approximately 1 million in 2023. All of Alibaba International’s e-commerce marketplaces have adopted the AI solution, with the same capabilities now available to merchants worldwide engaged in cross-border trade.
Key features driving adoption include:
- Creative Image Generation: Generates multiple, diverse visual variations from a single source image.
- AI-Generated Listings: Creates product listings directly from images.
- Marketing Content Creation: Generates promotional text.
A significant upgrade to Marco’s translation capabilities in late 2024 resulted in a 30% increase in user satisfaction for major European language areas. Marco now generates nearly 40% of all search-optimized product descriptions across Alibaba International’s platforms, a figure expected to exceed 50% in the near future.
Expanding Ecosystem and New AI Tools
Alibaba International has extended access to Marco’s technology to e-commerce platforms in China that operate outside of the Alibaba ecosystem. API invocations from these partners via Marco have increased 23-fold.
The company has also introduced three specialized AI Agents designed for complex operational tasks faced by merchants in cross-border e-commerce:
- Intelligent Refund Agent: Recommends optimal refund solutions by analyzing the market insights generated from both consumers and merchants, reducing costs by 15%.
- HS Code Agent: Automates customs classification, increasing accuracy by 23%.
- Merchant Recruitment Agent: Identifies and pre-qualifies potential sellers, nearly doubling the success rate for email lead conversion.
“The past year marks a significant shift in how we deploy AI to empower cross-border e-commerce, reflecting broader industry needs and trends,” said Kaifu Zhang, Vice President of Alibaba International and Head of its AI Business team. “Our approach combines deep, scenario-specific data with continuous learning loops, leading to increasingly powerful problem-solving capabilities. We’re evolving beyond standalone generative models toward dedicated AI agents that can tackle a wider range of complex business challenges efficiently for merchants engaged in cross-border trade worldwide.”
Some AI solutions are currently available for partners on Aidge, Alibaba International’s open AI platform.
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