Alibaba, a Chinese company, introduces an AI search tool for small businesses in Europe and the Americas.

• Alibaba revealed an AI-powered search engine for small businesses in Europe and the Americas to find supplies on Tuesday.
• According to Kuo Zhang, president of Alibaba.com and vice president of Alibaba International, initial tests revealed that the new tool led to a 40% increase in businesses' purchase intent compared to traditional search engines.
• Businesses can use Accio to find wholesale products and analyze their popularity with consumers and projected profit, as shown in CNBC demos.

Beijing-based e-commerce giant Alibaba revealed an AI-powered search engine on Tuesday for small businesses in Europe and the Americas to source supplies.

Alibaba International's vice president and president of Alibaba.com, Kuo Zhang, reported that initial tests revealed a 40% increase in businesses' purchase intent when using the new tool, which aims to leverage ChatGPT-like technology to boost sales.

The product, named Accio, is a web-based application that supports English, German, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, as stated by the company.

Businesses can use Accio to find wholesale products and analyze their popularity with consumers and projected profit, as shown in CNBC demos.

The tool provides a list of procurement options for a sports entrepreneur looking to build a line of pickleball products.

Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen large language model is used by the tech, but Zhang did not confirm if it integrates AI from other companies.

An AI model, trained on vast amounts of data, supports generative applications like ChatGPT, which generates human-like responses to user prompts. Despite this, many businesses are still in the experimental phase with AI, and several firms have yet to discover a way to monetize the technology.

Zhang stated that Accio utilizes data from 50 million businesses on Alibaba International's platform, as well as publicly available industry information. The tool includes 1 billion product listings and documents covering various industries in over 100 markets from Alibaba.com, which is the company's business-to-business platform that sells to companies outside China.

The largest group of buyers for the company are businesses located in Europe and North America, the company stated.

In October, Alibaba's international arm unveiled an updated AI translation tool that can help merchants connect with customers in other countries. The company boasted that its technology surpasses the translation capabilities of Google, DeepL, and ChatGPT.

Despite the rapid growth of international business, Alibaba's primary source of revenue remains its domestic e-commerce platforms, Taobao and Tmall. In August 2023, management informed investors that the Taobao app has the greatest potential to become a comprehensive smart portal for life and consumption, powered by AI.

Over 500 merchants on Chinese e-commerce platforms like Alibaba and JD.com utilized a generative AI tool during the week-long Singles Day shopping festival, according to a survey by Bain & Company.

The survey revealed that 56% of respondents believed AI tools had a "high positive impact" on enhancing productivity.

Alibaba is scheduled to report quarterly results on Friday.

—CNBC's Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.