AI Agents Help Chinese Merchants Break into the World Market

Business people are at the Yiwu Global Digital Trade Center, China, February 28, 2026. The city known as the "world's supermarket" is now relying on AI agents to accelerate trade towards the global market. (Photo: Xinhua/Xu Yu)

YIWU, China - Traders in Yiwu, China, are now using artificial intelligence or AI agents to speed up cross-border business. This technology helps them read trends, design products, and find buyers in global markets.

Xinhua, quoted Thursday, June 11, reported that a Yiwu trader named Wei Jun recently completed a transaction of 1,000 starry sky projector lamps with the help of an AI agent.

When a buyer from Kenya checks a sample in Yiwu, China, the automated system immediately works. The AI agent sends product specifications to the research and development team as well as the supply chain. The process, which is usually full of back-and-forth communication, can be cut.

Yiwu is known as the "world's supermarket". The city in Zhejiang Province, China has the world's largest small commodity wholesale market. The goods are diverse, from Christmas trinkets to World Cup souvenirs.

Through the market, about 2.1 million types of goods have been sold to 233 countries and regions. In 2025, Yiwu's export value was the highest among China's county-level regions.

The explosion in sales in Yiwu did not come from mere guesses. Traders read trends through short videos and popular keywords in social media comment sections. The difference is, the work that used to be exhausting is now helped by AI agents.

"We used to need a lot of time to collect and organize information from various platforms. Now we let the AI agent do the heavy work," said Li Shenghai, who switched from an operational specialist to an AI expertise developer, quoted by Xinhua.

AI also opens the way for new business actors. Zhang Qianchao, who previously had no experience in cross-border e-commerce, successfully sold custom-designed baseball caps to overseas markets.

He works alone, assisted by eight AI agents at Accio Work, Alibaba's AI agent platform. The agents are used for market research, product design, and trade policy analysis.

Every two weeks, market research agencies make reports on foreign social media trends for the baseball cap industry. If there is a model whose demand increases, the product design agency immediately works.

According to Xinhua, the AI agent cuts the product selection and design process from two to three weeks to just one day. In the two months since opening an online store, Zhang has sold more than 3,000 hats to Europe, the United States, and Africa.

Hong Yong, a junior researcher at the China Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said AI is transforming the business experience into a service that can be used when needed. For small and medium-sized businesses, AI plays a role like a business operating system.

China is now pushing AI to go deeper into the real economy, namely production and service activities that directly touch people's lives, such as manufacturing, agriculture, public services, and consumer markets. This direction is also included in the draft 15th Five-Year Plan for the period 2026-2030.

Pan Helin, an expert from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said China's supply chain advantages were strengthened by digital services. As a result, "Made in China" products can reach global buyers more accurately.