Here’s How Alibaba’s New, AI-Based Sourcing Agent Works

Alibaba International announced Thursday it has released an AI-powered sourcing agent called Accio Agent. The company joins the ranks of other organizations working to bring agentic AI, which is meant to take care of specific tasks autonomously or with little human intervention, to their customers.

Agentic applications have become increasingly popular points of discussion in 2025, both for consumer-facing functions like agentic shopping and for backend business tasks like supply chain visibility and sourcing.

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Alibaba noted in the announcement that Accio has particular potential for small-to-medium enterprises, which often have limited human capital to devote to sourcing activities. Still, these businesses work to maintain complex supply chains with multiple suppliers, which is both time consuming and highly manual. Alibaba developed Accio Agent in an effort to streamline some of the most time-consuming pieces of the sourcing equation for its clients.

Alibaba said it trained Accio Agent on 1 billion product listings and 50 million suppliers’ offerings and information. That, in turn, provides users with a wide breadth of options when sourcing products via the automated system. The company said its agent has the power to axe weeks’ worth of work from the sourcing process, consolidating the same tasks into minutes.

Users start by giving Accio Agent a task to research. While the query can be pointed at a specific product or category, the agent can also handle multi-faceted requests, researching various categories and suppliers simultaneously.

So, for instance, while one user might tell Accio, “Find me a supplier based in Vietnam who can make small batches of high-quality T-shirts with a six-week turnaround,” another user might tell Accio, “Find suppliers that can support a pop-up brand event in New York City. I need a supplier that can provide 150 staff T-shirts, a supplier that can quickly ship tents and coffee cups, a supplier that can produce tote bags for swag bags and items to put in the swag bags. The event will be ‘70s themed, and I need all products by October 1.”

Based on the unique task it has been given, Accio Agent pores over available suppliers, then provides a list of qualified suppliers for each subset of the task it has been given.

“Each supplier is carefully evaluated based on crucial factors, like operational history, international experience, production capacity, local market, track record and certifications,” a promotional video for Accio stated.

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Once preliminary supplier lists have been issued, the user can narrow their options by giving Accio additional parameters. For instance, the user that needs T-shirts can tell Accio they only want to purchase from a manufacturer that has an Oeko-Tex certification. The user planning the event might tell Accio they only want to buy tote bags made of organic cotton. Based on the additional requirements, Accio provides a finalized supplier suggestion list that compares the merits of each suggested supplier.

From there, the user specifies how many units of each item they want to purchase, and Accio drafts outreach to be sent to the selected suppliers automatically. Once inquiries have been sent, users can interface directly with suppliers through Accio’s platform.

The company contends that Accio allows users to automate 70 percent of the manual tasks associated with sourcing products. In its announcement, Alibaba noted that the agent also offers product ideation, prototyping and compliance-related functions in an effort to break down organizational silos.

Kuo Zhang, vice president of Alibaba International, said the agentic function could open new pathways during a time when sourcing has become increasingly convoluted because of the global macroeconomic environment.

“Accio Agent is a highly practical tool which solves a multitude of problems for businesses sourcing globally. It’s an AI agent designed to help you do business. It can handle multiple tasks simultaneously, operating like a team of dedicated professionals—sourcing agents, product developers, engineers and market researchers—all working together to grow your business,” Zhang said in a statement.

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