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Author | Huang Yu
Editor | Zhou Zhiyu
After two years of low-price competition and a chaotic custody model, the cross-border e-commerce industry is undergoing significant changes under the current global trade upheaval.
To find certainty in growth amid future uncertainties, Alibaba's international digital commerce group (referred to as &#34;Alibaba International&#34;), which focuses on overseas e-commerce, is continuously betting on AI, hoping to help merchants escape the vortex of &#34;low-price&#34; competition and transition to &#34;high value-added&#34; offerings.
Foreign trade is moving towards comprehensive AI integration, and to become a leader in this AI foreign trade revolution, Alibaba International must recruit more AI talent. However, in today's fiercely competitive global AI race, the competition for AI talent is also intense.
According to Wall Street Insights, to compete for AI talent, Alibaba International has been making significant moves. In the recently launched 2026 campus recruitment, 80% of the positions are AI-related, including AI algorithms, R&amp;D, AI product managers, and more. At the same time, Alibaba International has initiated a global training program for top AI technology talent called Bravo 102.
The global cross-border e-commerce sector is undergoing a new round of reshuffling. After nearly 26 years of ups and downs overseas, Alibaba International is expected to seize the opportunity presented by AI to maintain its leading position in the industry while further expanding its growth space.
This battle is not only for Alibaba International but also for the numerous Chinese cross-border e-commerce businesses that have already settled on the Alibaba International platform.
Intense Competition
Whether in the underlying technology of AI or the application of AI, the key to victory is talent.
The recently launched 2026 campus recruitment has already demonstrated Alibaba International's determination to recruit AI talent on a large scale.
In addition to 80% of the recruitment positions being AI-related, the &#34;Bravo 102&#34; program, which is the first global training initiative for top AI technology talent, is also noteworthy.
According to Wall Street Insights, this program breaks the traditional campus recruitment system, allowing candidates who pass the interview to select projects and teams, and enjoy a fast-track promotion pathway after joining.
At the same time, in response to the industry trend of blurred boundaries between algorithms and engineering, to avoid limiting new graduates to narrow positions too early, &#34;Bravo 102&#34; offers five major roles: algorithm engineer, data engineer, R&amp;D engineer, large model algorithm engineer, and large model platform R&amp;D engineer, hoping to provide excellent graduates with broader career growth opportunities.
Wall Street Insights has learned from insiders that candidates with experience in internationally recognized competitions and academic achievements have an advantage in Alibaba International's talent selection. Even without relevant internship experience, AI enthusiasts with a deep understanding and full-stack skills also have a great chance to stand out in Alibaba International's campus recruitment interviews.
More than two years after ChatGPT sparked the wave of large AI models, the battlefield in the AI field has shifted more from foundational technology research to practical applications
The application of AI is experiencing an unprecedented explosion, and the fierce competition for talent is evident.
Talent solutions provider Hudson recently released the &#34;2025 Talent Trends Report,&#34; which points out that breakthroughs in AI have pushed talent demand to new heights, with the competition for high-end AI talent entering a heated stage, further exacerbating the scarcity of top talent.
Hudson's data shows that after the Spring Festival this year, the recruitment volume in the AI sector has increased by about 25%, especially in areas related to algorithm engineering, algorithm optimization, and AI infrastructure, where recruitment enthusiasm continues to soar.
Against this backdrop, the supply-demand ratio for AI talent is only 0.5, meaning that for every two AI positions, only one suitable candidate can be matched. Particularly in areas such as reinforcement learning, large model algorithms, and multimodal algorithms, there is a severe shortage of top researchers and engineers.
The results of the &#34;2024 China Enterprise Intelligent Development Talent Demand Survey&#34; released by iiMedia Consulting also show that as many as 91.3% of surveyed companies face a shortage of AI talent.
This supply-demand imbalance has directly led to top talent having the power to set their own prices.
According to Hudson's data, the top 20% of AI talent in the industry can see salary increases of 30%-50% when switching jobs, with top researchers and engineers in the field of reinforcement learning becoming the focal point of competition among leading companies. Meanwhile, authors who publish papers in international top journals dominate the talent market, with their bargaining power far exceeding that of other competitors.
Even interns in AI-related positions have seen their value soar, with monthly incomes exceeding ten thousand becoming quite common.
The talent gap and high salary costs pose significant challenges for companies like Alibaba International, which aim to build a strong AI team, but Alibaba International has no way out.
AI Landscape
Alibaba International now regards AI as one of its most important strategies, continuously increasing its investment in AI since 2023.
According to information from Wall Street News, Alibaba International's AI focuses on the application layer, forming two core directions under the overall AI landscape of Alibaba Group: first, exploring AI-native applications to further expand the boundaries of business and technological innovation; second, upgrading existing businesses through AI transformation, viewing AI as the core driving force for growth and reshaping cross-border e-commerce.
In terms of AI-native applications, last year, Alibaba International launched the world's first AI search engine in the foreign trade sector—Accio—overseas, hoping to completely reshape the $30 trillion global trade industry starting from the B2B e-commerce search entry through an AI-native experience.
AI search emphasizes the ability to combine search engines with large language models (LLM), and Alibaba International's B2B search aimed at the e-commerce industry must naturally be an expert in e-commerce. It can start from a vague comprehensive demand and form executable business solutions.
Industry insiders believe that the launch of Accio is a disruption and iteration of the current B2B procurement experience, and it may have the opportunity to become the next generation of B2B Google in the AI era.
At the end of February this year, Accio also integrated advanced reasoning models such as DeepSeek, officially launching features for in-depth research and business exploration
According to Zhang Kuo, president of Alibaba International Station, for example, if someone whimsically wants to build an indoor ski resort in the desert, they can simply input this sentence into the dialogue box, and Accio will search a large amount of information in just 30 seconds, reasoning repeatedly and considering various factors to provide a detailed plan and procurement proposal.
In terms of AI transformation and upgrading of existing businesses, Alibaba International focuses on using AI to solve the core efficiency problems for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in various aspects of cross-border e-commerce.
For instance, the AI tool &#34;Business Assistant&#34; launched by Alibaba International Station in November 2023 can help merchants quickly identify hot-selling products and optimize the product release process through precise market analysis and intelligent recommendations, significantly improving operational efficiency.
Currently, Alibaba International Station's AI Business Assistant has equipped SMEs with four specialized AI Agents to address the four major challenges in foreign trade operations: product release, reception, marketing, and compliance, making it the first full-process AI developed specifically for the foreign trade industry.
It is reported that over 100,000 enterprises worldwide are currently using Alibaba International Station's AI tools for foreign trade.
In addition, Alibaba International has developed an AI open platform—Aidge—to provide AI services for B2C cross-border e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress, Trendyol, and Daraz, including virtual fitting, AI customer service, and marketing promotion. Currently, Aidge's daily call volume has exceeded 600 million.
At the same time, Alibaba International also places great importance on the development of vertical AI models, such as its Marco MT model specifically designed for multilingual translation, and the Ovis multimodal model, which has achieved state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance in image understanding tasks.
According to Wall Street News, the call volume for Alibaba International's AI services doubles every two months, and as of March 2025, the average daily call volume has surpassed 600 million.
With the development of these AI technologies and applications, Alibaba International's demand for AI talent has naturally increased significantly.
Additionally, Wall Street News has learned from informed sources that Alibaba International's large-scale campus recruitment this time echoes Alibaba Group's commitment to investing in AI and is one of the signals for Alibaba Group to restart recruitment after the employee count hit bottom.
Recently, Joseph Tsai, chairman of Alibaba Group's board, stated at the HSBC Global Investment Summit held in Hong Kong that Alibaba's employee count has hit bottom and will &#34;restart and rehire.&#34;
On the road to restarting expansion, AI has become the biggest driving force for Alibaba's future development. In the next three years, more than 380 billion yuan will be invested in building cloud and AI hardware infrastructure, exceeding the total amount of the past decade.
The Future Battle
Alibaba is actually one of the first players in China to embark on a global e-commerce journey, establishing the international station positioned for cross-border B2B in 1999, and subsequently establishing and acquiring six major retail platforms. Currently, Alibaba's overseas e-commerce platforms include the B2B Alibaba International Station and the B2C platforms AliExpress, Lazada, Daraz, and Trendyol.
During the golden period of rapid development in domestic e-commerce, Alibaba's overseas business appeared somewhat dim. However, times have changed, and in recent years, as the domestic e-commerce industry has reached its growth peak, Alibaba International has returned to the spotlight, becoming an important growth engine for Alibaba
Alibaba's financial report shows that in the fourth quarter of last year, Alibaba International achieved good performance, with operating revenue increasing by 32% year-on-year to 37.8 billion yuan, mainly driven by revenue growth from AliExpress and Trendyol.
While Alibaba International is experiencing rapid growth, it also faces the issue of expanding losses. In the fourth quarter of last year, Alibaba International reported an adjusted EBITA loss of 4.952 billion yuan, compared to a loss of 3.146 billion yuan in the same period of 2023.
Alibaba stated in the financial report that Alibaba International increased its investment during the overseas shopping season and continued to invest in specific European markets and the Gulf region to acquire users, leading to increased losses.
In fact, Alibaba International has begun to change its previous high-profile strategy, shifting more towards refined operations.
Alibaba International CEO Jiang Fan stated last August that Alibaba is currently upgrading its business model overseas, changing the previous situation of relatively low efficiency and weak service experience. Therefore, Alibaba International is still in the investment phase, but efficiency is also being optimized to pursue healthier growth.
In the current context of fierce competition and uncertainty in cross-border e-commerce, AI will be an important driving force for Alibaba International's transformation and upgrade.
With the changing global trade situation, there is a consensus that cross-border e-commerce will inevitably shift from growth at all costs to a focus on profitable growth.
Several cross-border e-commerce professionals told Wall Street Insight that the threshold for cross-border e-commerce has become higher, and Chinese companies going overseas must increase R&amp;D investment, improve product quality and added value, and shift from simple &#34;low-price exports&#34; to a &#34;branding&#34; high-value-added strategy.
In this competition, AI is reshaping the supply-demand matching and operating models of cross-border e-commerce, becoming a key variable in the competition among cross-border e-commerce platforms.
With the help of AI, merchants can focus more on the quality, cost-effectiveness, and service of the products themselves, engaging in more value-adding activities rather than &#34;competing&#34; in repetitive tasks that do not create value.
AI will bring a revolution in foreign trade, and amid the turbulence of the global trade situation, the &#34;AI e-commerce&#34; era mentioned by Jack Ma may arrive faster, and the competitive landscape of the global e-commerce market will be rewritten once again

Alibaba  earnings 

BABA

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- Alibaba's international digital commerce group is focusing on AI to transition from low-price competition to high-value offerings in the cross-border e-commerce sector.  
- The company is aggressively recruiting AI talent, with 80% of its 2026 campus recruitment positions dedicated to AI roles, and has launched the Bravo102 program to cultivate top AI professionals globally.  
- As the demand for AI talent surges, Alibaba aims to leverage AI technologies to enhance operational efficiency and reshape the cross-border e-commerce landscape amid increasing competition and evolving global trade dynamics.

Alibaba International aims to break the deadlock with AI