United Nations Small and Medium Enterprises Day: Alibaba International Station shares "Chinese experience", AI becomes the key word

June 27th is the "Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Day" established by the United Nations. On that day, Zhang Kuo, President of Alibaba International Station, accepted an exclusive interview with the United Nations International Trade Center (ITC ) in Geneva, Switzerland , and shared the latest experience of Alibaba International Station using AI to help micro, small and medium-sized enterprises better participate in global trade. Zhang Kuo mentioned that currently more than 30,000 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises around the world are using Alibaba International Station's AI tools to do foreign trade.

(Photo: Zhang Kuo, President of Alibaba International Station, is interviewed by James Howe, Head of Digital, Marketing and Partnerships at the United Nations ITC )

It is understood that Alibaba International Station's AI foreign trade tools were launched in China in November last year and were only opened to overseas small and medium-sized enterprises in the first half of this year. In such a short period of time, it has attracted tens of thousands of companies to use it, which means that the demand for AI applications among small and medium-sized enterprises around the world has surged. According to the "Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Daily Report" released by Alibaba International Station on the same day, nearly 30% of small and medium-sized enterprises around the world tend to use AI tools every day .

On the other hand, the data also shows that the practicality of Alibaba International Station's AI tools has been most widely verified in the global market and different languages ​​and cultures. It is reported that the AI ​​tools focus on the difficulties encountered by small and medium-sized enterprises in global trade: how to quickly release products that better meet the needs of overseas markets , generate vivid product pictures and introduction videos with one click , and communicate with foreign customers " without time difference " and "without language barriers" , etc.

In China, with the help of AI , foreign trade merchants can shorten the time it takes to release products to the global market by 50 % , and the exposure of AI - optimized products overseas can be greatly increased by 37 % . In the use of overseas companies, the product descriptions, communication copywriting, pictures and videos generated by Alibaba International Station AI have been adopted by more than 70 % of local merchants .

Through this AI tool that has been verified by the global market , the threshold for small and medium-sized enterprises around the world to participate in global trade has been greatly lowered. In an interview with the United Nations, Zhang Kuo said: "Our goal is to make the latest AI tools accessible to everyone and enable all small and medium-sized enterprises to fully apply AI . " He mentioned that among the 20 countries and regions that use the most AI tools on Alibaba International Station , developing countries account for half.

This achievement has also received great attention from the United Nations International Trade Center. In an interview, it commented that foreign trade e-commerce that uses the latest digital technology has achieved "phenomenal growth" in the past 20 years , and has also changed the pattern of global trade, making global trade, which was originally dominated by large companies, become accessible to all small and medium-sized enterprises and full of vitality and competitiveness.

Zhang Kuo also observed that with the digitalization process over the past 20 years, small and medium-sized enterprises have contributed more than half of the global trade volume and have become the main force of global trade. AI is bound to further accelerate this process. He believes that B2B , as the main body of global trade, still has a single-digit digital penetration rate. This means huge potential in the future, and more small and medium-sized enterprises are eager to quickly start digital trade through AI technology .

At the same time, when AI lowers the threshold for global trade, companies that were originally only able to do local business can also expand their business globally in a very simple way and gain greater room for growth by participating in the global supply chain. This is good news for small and medium-sized enterprises around the world.

Alibaba International Station

Small and Medium Enterprises Day