According to the manufacturer, the new system works by removing technical barriers and using pre-configured “teams” of agents to cover different aspects of the business lifecycle.
Chinese giant Alibaba’s international digital commerce division is launching a new AI agent, Accio Work, for corporate customers.
Alibaba International said the new agent is an “evolution” of its existing Accio B2B agent, which serves 10 million monthly active users, and provides small and medium-sized businesses with “no-code, instant task force” that requires “zero setup.”
Accio Work aims to help business owners proactively automate tasks such as compliance, marketing and procurement, while leveraging “directly from real-time consumer trends and actual transaction records” across the company’s e-commerce platform to “minimize AI illusions,” the company said.
Kuo Zhang, President of Alibaba.com and Vice President of Alibaba International, said, “Our vision is to democratize enterprise-grade AI. We want all entrepreneurs, no matter the size of their team, to have access to an intelligent workforce that operates at the scale of large enterprises. Small and medium-sized businesses will especially benefit from Accio Work.”
The new system works by removing technical barriers and using pre-configured “teams” of agents that cover different aspects of the business lifecycle, work in parallel towards goals, and provide strategic insights and recommendations.
Accio Work is designed to ensure that “all output is specific, accurate, and commercially relevant” while maintaining “a security-first approach featuring a sandbox environment and fine-grained permissions management,” the company said.
The company says users have the option not to store data on its servers, but certain AI actions will require explicit user approval.
China’s AI landscape is rapidly evolving and the country is in the midst of an agent AI frenzy, but the exit of US AI leaders Anthropic and OpenAI from the market leaves even more room for Chinese companies looking to capitalize.
Following the recent frenzy of agent AI experimentation among the Chinese, authorities in Beijing are restricting state-run companies and government agencies from running many such apps on public computers, concerned about potential cybersecurity risks.
Accio Work is scheduled to be available by the end of March. Its arrival had been heralded in recent days.
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