Zhang Kuo of Alibaba International Station accepted an exclusive interview with Bloomberg: B2B trade is the most perfect application scenario for AI

Nowadays, B2B foreign trade is becoming a topic more and more frequently at top international investor conferences. Why?

At the Greenwich Forum, a top investor summit held in Hong Kong on June 6 , Zhang Kuo, president of Alibaba International Station, revealed the reason in a conversation with a Bloomberg technology reporter . The vast majority of exports in global trade are conducted in the form of B2B. As the largest digital platform in this field, Alibaba International Station's annual GMV reached US $50 billion, and the overall export scale of small and medium-sized enterprises it serves reached US$400 billion . This is the main track that cannot be avoided when anyone discusses the current trend of going overseas.

(Photo: Zhang Kuo, President of Alibaba International Station, talks about AI at the Greenwich Forum )

But even with such a scale, the penetration rate of digitalization in global trade is still in single digits , and this is exactly where the imagination of B2B digital trade lies: the ceiling is high and the future potential is huge.

Especially now, Alibaba International Station is rapidly applying generative AI technology and deeply integrating the supply chain to transform the foreign trade transaction experience. The way of trade between small and medium-sized enterprises around the world is becoming extremely simple. This has promoted the rapid growth of digital trade around the world. In the interview, Zhang Kuo mentioned that in the past five years, the average annual growth rate of Alibaba International Station has reached 22 % .

Zhang Kuo also stated that AI foreign trade tools that apply the latest technology , semi-hosting services based on deep supply chain integration, and a global supply chain built by accelerating overseas expansion will be the core ways for Alibaba International Station to further help global SMEs in the future.

AI transforms foreign trade platforms from procurement engines to "creative engines "

It is reported that this "Greenwich Forum" brought together Nobel Prize winners in economics, as well as many well-known investors including Ray Dalio and Cathie Wood , and AI was a hot topic of concern to everyone present.

But unlike many large models that come out of thin air, Alibaba International Station's AI is "insighted" into the specific daily problems that small and medium-sized enterprises encounter every day . Zhang Kuo believes: "B2B trade is the most perfect application scenario for AI . "

In the interview, Zhang Kuo told the audience what problems small and medium-sized business owners used to encounter every day:

In the past, when small and medium-sized enterprises wanted to make their products more attractive to potential overseas customers, they had to spend a lot of time and energy to publish products, polish product descriptions, shoot introduction videos, and add vivid pictures;

When overseas customers want to learn more about these products, they have to stay in front of their computers or mobile phones late at night to communicate across time differences and polish their responses to avoid misunderstandings caused by various cultural differences.

…

These initial processes alone involve a lot of repetitive and trivial work. When generative AI became popular, Alibaba International Station immediately realized that these tasks are exactly what AI is best at. In November last year , Alibaba International Station took the lead in launching a series of AI foreign trade products, all of which are closely centered around the actual processes of small and medium-sized enterprises doing foreign trade.

Zhang Kuo took product release as an example. Through the AI ​​business assistant of Alibaba International Station , the time for small and medium-sized enterprises to release products has been greatly shortened by 50 % , and the efficiency has doubled. In addition, a large number of video and picture materials can be generated and applied with one click, and the final effect is 37% better . Zhang Kuo explained that because the product description optimized by AI is more in line with the needs of the overseas market, data shows that the exposure of these products overseas has increased by 37 % .

Zhang Kuo made an analogy: "Now the AI ​​foreign trade of Alibaba International Station is like providing intelligent driving for small and medium-sized enterprises. " It is reported that this series of AI foreign trade tools has optimized millions of products since its release. Zhang Kuo revealed that 20,000 small and medium-sized enterprises have subscribed to use it. As a result, Alibaba International Station has become one of the few companies that truly use AI to solve practical industrial problems.

In fact, the above-mentioned "efficiency improvement" is only the initial stage of the huge changes that AI will bring to the foreign trade sector. Zhang Kuo said in an exclusive interview that in the past, the foreign trade platform was more of a procurement engine for small and medium-sized enterprises, but AI will make it a "creative engine."

With the help of the new generation of AI foreign trade products that Alibaba International Station is about to release , small and medium-sized enterprises can use pictures, videos, and texts to quickly "generate" the creative products of their dreams, and more accurately match suitable suppliers. As a result, Alibaba International Station will help small and medium-sized enterprises create more innovative products and bring greater business opportunities.

Deepening the supply chain: Launching semi-hosting to accelerate global expansion

While AI simplifies the way small and medium-sized enterprises do foreign trade, Alibaba International Station will go further into the supply chain and transform the experience of foreign trade transactions.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Zhang Kuo mentioned that, unlike the familiar retail e-commerce, the process of foreign trade is long and complicated, and is full of uncertainties from transactions, logistics to after-sales service. Therefore, even though small and medium-sized enterprises know that global trade can bring better products, more stable business, and a larger market, they can only "stay away" under such "uncertainty".

The launch of the semi-hosted service at the beginning of this year by Alibaba International Station is changing this situation. In the semi-hosted service, sellers only need to focus on the product, and under the premise of independent operation and pricing, the most complicated logistics and after-sales links are entrusted to the platform.

Buyers can do global procurement just like buying a pair of sneakers online: the price is fixed, the logistics is time-limited, and after-sales service is guaranteed by the platform. The threshold for foreign trade has been greatly lowered, and small and medium-sized enterprises with no previous experience can quickly participate in global trade and use the global supply chain to cope with global competitiveness.

Zhang Kuo predicts that after the semi-hosted experience is upgraded, a large number of spot wholesale buyers with a high demand for certainty will enter Alibaba International Station, which means a huge incremental market of trillions of US dollars.

In addition, Alibaba International Station is accelerating its global expansion and will eventually build a B2B digital trade network that "sells globally" .

Last year, Alibaba International Station acquired Visable, a well-known B2B platform in Europe , and realized dual-brand operation in Europe: on the one hand, Alibaba International Station itself will continue to increase its investment in Europe to help local SMEs sell globally, and will also continue to provide technical investment for Visable to serve regional trade between European countries. This has greatly expanded Alibaba International Station's customer base and service scale in Europe.

At present, Alibaba International Station has served 48 million small and medium-sized enterprises in more than 190 countries and regions , and its global influence and popularity are rapidly increasing. According to a brand research report recently released by a well-known overseas research institution, Alibaba International Station ranks first in brand recognition in core markets such as the United States and Germany.

Alibaba International Station

Zhang Kuo