Alibaba's secondhand goods platform employs AI

Xianyu, Chinese tech heavyweight Alibaba Group's online trading platform for secondhand goods, is accelerating steps to leverage artificial intelligence technology to improve the transaction efficiency of idle goods.

Ding Jian, president of Xianyu, said the essence of idle goods trading lies in reallocating underused social resources to those who need them, adding that the company aims to elevate the matching efficiency of transactions based on the multimodal understanding capabilities of Alibaba's Qwen large models.

Ding made the remarks at the 2025 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, which ended on Sunday in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province.

The company is scrambling to integrate cutting-edge technologies with the secondhand goods transaction platform and has built proprietary AI functions that can realize the precise understanding of product content and pricing, he said.

During the summit, Xianyu showcased two new AI applications which are targeted at improving the platform's AI service capabilities for buyers.

The AI-powered smart search leverages interactive searches to better understand users' needs and purchasing preferences, with the aim of matching suitable items and sellers with buyers and providing detailed shopping advices.

The AI market insights function uses the platform's real transaction data and algorithms to provide users with price references and supply-demand trends in the market.

Ding said Xianyu's AI applications are currently used by 45 million customers, with the transaction of AI-driven merchandise exceeding 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion). The company has built a comprehensive set of AI agents tailored to the trading scenario of idle goods, integrating AI across the entire transaction chain.