The new system works by removing technical barriers and using a pre-configured ‘team’ of agents to cover various aspects of the business life cycle, according to its maker.

Chinese tech giant Alibaba’s international digital commerce division is to launch a new AI agent for enterprise customers, Accio Work.

The new agent is an “evolution” of the existing Accio business-to-business agent that serves 10m monthly active users, Alibaba International said, and will provide small- and medium-sized businesses with “an immediate, no-code taskforce” that requires “zero set up”.

Accio Work is intended to help business owners proactively automate tasks such as compliance, marketing and sourcing, the company said, while drawing “directly from real-time consumer trends and actual business transaction records” across the company’s e-commerce platforms to help “minimise AI hallucinations”.

Kuo Zhang, president of Alibaba.com and vice-president of Alibaba International, 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.”

The new system works by removing technical barriers and using a pre-configured “team” of agents to cover various aspects of the business life cycle, work in parallel towards goals, and provide strategic insights and suggestions, according to its maker.

Accio Work is designed to ensure that “every output is specific, accurate and commercially relevant” while maintaining “a security-first approach featuring sandboxed environments and granular permission management”, the company said.

Users will be able to choose not to save any data on servers, while certain “high-stakes” AI actions – such as those involving finances or file access – will require explicit user approval, according to the company.

The Chinese AI landscape is rapidly evolving, with the country in the midst of an agentic AI frenzy, while the absence of US AI leaders Anthropic and OpenAI from the market leaves even more space for Chinese companies attempting to take advantage of the interest.

The recent craze for agentic AI experimentation among the Chinese population has moved authorities in Beijing to restrict state-run enterprises and government agencies from running many such apps on official computers, fearing potential cybersecurity risks.

Accio Work is slated for availability by the end of March. Its arrival had been foreshadowed in recent days.

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