The AI in Business Podcast Scaling Global Trade with AI Powered Tools for SMBs - with Kuo Zhang of Alibaba.com
Sep 18, 2025
Kuo Zhang, President of Alibaba.com since 2017, shares his expertise in e-commerce and AI-powered tools for small and medium-sized businesses. He highlights how SMBs face numerous challenges in global sourcing, such as language barriers and compliance issues. Zhang details Alibaba's agentic AI system, Axio, which transforms sourcing from months to mere hours. He emphasizes a strategic approach to AI adoption, enabling organizations of any size to enhance their procurement processes and drive efficiency in their global trade efforts.
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Three Core Barriers To SMB Global Sourcing
- Global sourcing is blocked by complexity, trust, and moving parts like geopolitics and tariffs.
- Alibaba.com connects millions of SMBs and uses tech to reduce these barriers at scale.
Agent Converts Excel Into Full Sourcing Plan
- A buyer organized a multi-country sports event and uploaded an Excel of hundreds of items to Axio.
- The agent returned compliant supplier lists and managed outreach, cutting a month-long sourcing job to hours.
Agent Acts As Co‑Founder For Solo Entrepreneurs
- A solo entrepreneur building ADHD-specific clothing used Axio to run market research, design specs, and supplier outreach.
- What used to take four weeks became an agentic co-founder workflow that handled prototypes and supplier commitments.