TECHNOLOGY
More bang for your byte Alibaba. com recently unveiled benchmarking data showing that Accio operates at less than half the cost of leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic on specific e-commerce tasks.
“ When we talk about benchmarks, that is central to how we think about this,” Kuo says.“ For every agent tool, you provide input and receive output. When frontier model developers release new models, they highlight various benchmarks showing they beat the competition. However, when SMBs actually use these models or tools, they often fail to perform as expected.”
Kuo highlights why that affordability is so crucial for many SMEs:“ That is why we want to use real-time, real-business benchmarks to measure inputs and outputs. Beyond needing results to be reliable and trustworthy, AI also needs to be affordable. A useful AI is an affordable AI for SMBs, which is why we keep improving the performance of Accio.”
It is well known that Chinese AI models are increasingly able to undercut US competitors on price.
All hands on deck Powering Alibaba. com’ s global marketplace isn’ t a solo effort; it relies on a web of financial and supply chain partners.
“ In global trade, there are many important stakeholders,” Kuo notes.“ We work with payment infrastructure providers like Fiserv and JPMorgan, alongside many banks that lay the
foundation for global payments and agentic trade. We also work with freight forwarders and logistics providers like DHL and Maersk as strategic partners. With AI, it becomes much easier for buyers and suppliers to find the right sea freight, air freight or logistics solutions.”
He continues:“ Additionally, we collaborate with tech partners such as Helium 10 – which is very popular in the Amazon ecosystem – to generate real-time market and trend reports for Accio users.”
Kuo highlights that it’ s an open platform:“ These are just a few of our key partners among the roughly 500 partners
78 October 2026