Alibaba unveils full-scale AI agent for businesses

Accio was first rolled out in November 2024 as an AI-powered B2B sourcing engine, but has now developed into a full-scale AI agent to serve over 10 million monthly active users across the world.

The launch of Accio Work is part of a “new phase” in the evolution to support the needs of businesses worldwide.

The group said it requires “zero setup” and can immediately deploy agents to perform complex tasks as AI evolves to become “autonomous executors”.

Accio Work aims to remove barriers to deployment with an already pre-configured team of agents made for a business life cycle, such as market analysis, design, sourcing, long-term store optimisation, and inventory monitoring. 

Accio Work enables automation where business owners of online sites or physical stores can use agents to handle tasks like managing real-time documents such as VAT filings and tax refunds, autonomous sourcing, marketing automation, and overseeing logistics.

Alibaba.com president and Alibaba International vice president Kuo Zhang said: “Our vision is to democratise enterprise-grade AI.

“We want every entrepreneur – regardless of team size – to access an intelligent workforce that operates with the scale of a major corporation. Small businesses will find Accio Work especially useful.”

Accio Work enables automation where business owners of online sites or physical stores can use agents to handle tasks like managing real-time documents such as VAT filings and tax refunds, autonomous sourcing, marketing automation, and overseeing logistics.

The AI agent tool is built on Alibaba Group’s proprietary ecosystem, using data from real-time consumer trends and business transactions across Alibaba’s ecommerce platform.

As some tasks are sensitive, Accio Work has a security-first approach where actions involving finances or file access need explicit user approval so the AI can work within the set boundaries.