China's 'one-person companies' have exploded. An Alibaba exec explains how AI agents make that possible.

• Alibaba.com president Kuo Zhang says AI is aiding the surge in one-person companies.
• OpenClaw, an AI agent, has helped boost the trend in China.
• Alibaba.com faces tariff-related challenges. Zhang says he focuses on two things to navigate them.

China has seen an explosion in "one-person companies" thanks to a little help from AI agents.

Alibaba.com president Kuo Zhang told Business Insider he has seen this growth firsthand, estimating that 30% to 40% of the e-commerce platform's customers are "solo entrepreneurs."

Business Insider previously reported on the rise of one-person companies, or OPCs, which rely on AI tools such as agents and vibe-coding technology to build their businesses without hiring other employees. Some Chinese cities are attracting these startups by offering free housing, rent-free offices, and subsidies of up to $720,000.

Zhang said AI agents have helped make these types of startups possible. He runs Alibaba.com, the Chinese cloud and retail giant's e-commerce platform that connects buyers and suppliers. While most of its customers are from China, it's also growing its customer base in the US, Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and other regions.

One-person companies face barriers to building their business. Tasks like uploading products to different sites, managing social accounts, and handling customer complaints are "easy for a big company" but harder for small businesses, Zhang said. While these tasks may not be the expertise of small businesses, they are "essential for success," he added.

Agents can help with some of that grunt work.

"Instead of taking the place of the human beings, actually, they are the employees of that solo entrepreneur," Zhang said of AI agents.

Alibaba.com recently launched Accio Work, an AI agent designed for small businesses, including one-person companies. It can help companies manage daily e-commerce operations, including customer service, tax compliance, marketing, logistics, product listings, and more.

"They are in lack of help or tax support. And now, AI is very easy to use. It's very easy to adopt and to understand everything is going to change that perspective, and we think they can benefit from them the most," Zhang said.

Alibaba.com's main Accio agent first launched in late 2024 and now has 10 million active users a month, according to the company.

China's OpenClaw craze

The rise of OPCs has been boosted by OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent that has become wildly popular in China. The craze has sparked a sort of OpenClaw gold rush and spawned quirky agents for stock trading and setting up blind dates. Many OPCs have also built businesses using the OpenClaw agent.

Zhang says that the rise in OpenClaw has helped educate the market about AI agents. Alibaba itself introduced JVS Claw, a mobile app to help users install and deploy OpenClaw more easily.

Compared to China, Zhang said American users are less educated about OpenClaw and that there's a smaller scene around it. That said, OpenClaw has issues with security and return on investment, he said, adding that some customers have spent "hundreds of US dollars for tokens," and when they don't get the results they want from using agents, they quit.

Instead, it's important for agents to be user-friendly, secure, and easy for customers to get started, he said.

"If you go to SMBs, you ask about all the fancy terms about AI, like the token economy, like cloud, like open cloud, probably they've never heard about that, and what they care most is about how these tools can help me," Zhang said.

Alibaba faces changing tariff policies

Alibaba.com and businesses on the e-commerce platform face another major challenge: navigating a constantly changing tariff landscape. Zhang first became president of Alibaba.com in 2017, during President Donald Trump's first term. As policies change, Zhang said it helps to focus on two things: serving customers based on supply and demand, and technology.

"Technology changes on a daily basis, so I've learn a lot from the tech companies, and from our SMBs. They will tell us what they need and how we can leverage tech the best to help them on a daily basis," Zhang said.

"The rest, I say, is noise," he added. "Just follow all the rules, and we follow all the rules in the world."

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