Fu Jiangyan (right), a merchant in Yiwu, East China's Zhejiang Province, introduces her products to a foreign customer with AI tools on February 25, 2025. Photo: VCG

"I was just trying it out, but to my surprise, the virtual human responded to me fluently in Arabic. It even recommended product bundles on its own and told me that the pair of jeans I had randomly selected was out of stock in my size," said Mansoori, a Kuwaiti buyer, told the Global Times, recalling a late-night interaction with a Chinese supplier's digital assistant. "I'm still amazed," he added. "The most impressive part? It never clocks out."

Timely communication is one of the key factors that drives Mansoori to place orders. "I've been to China, but it's unrealistic to add every seller on WeChat. Most of the time, I'm browsing through various online stores," he explained.

The efficiency brought by artificial intelligence (AI) is a two-way street. For buyers like Mansoori, it means receiving timely responses; for Chinese exporters, it enables instant engagement.

Lower cost, greater efficiency

As China's AI foundation models continue to advance, an increasing number of Chinese companies are deploying "digital employees" in overseas markets to support customer service, e-commerce sales and livestream marketing. These customizable, cost-effective and round-the-clock virtual workers are rapidly gaining traction, especially in the Middle East and Latin America, where linguistic diversity and high labor costs pose ongoing challenges, according to one industry insider.

Dubbed as the "world's supermarket," the city of Yiwu in East China's Zhejiang Province has made significant strides in enhancing cross-border e-commerce with the assistance of AI. Its launch of the world's first large language model tailored to commodity trade has helped merchants forge faster, more efficient connections with customers across its vast global network, according to a spokesperson for the Yiwu International Trade City.

Yang Yi'ai, an exporter from Yiwu, demonstrated the technology using the official platform's AI-powered mini program. After speaking a few lines into the camera, the system quickly generated a polished video in which she appeared to fluently introduce her products in English, Spanish and other languages — complete with natural expressions and smooth delivery.

"Videos are more intuitive and have attracted lots of foreign buyers," Yang told the Global Times. By recording lip-synced footage and allowing the AI to generate customized scripts, she can now produce promotional videos in 36 languages. The tool also adapts background music to regional preferences. With this multilingual edge, Yang has significantly expanded her reach in global markets.

As of Tuesday, the language model-based mini program had attracted more than 5,000 users, leading to a more than 20 percent increase in merchant orders, the Yiwu International Trade City said in a statement to the Global Times.

AI-generated virtual humans enable low-cost, high-efficiency content production. In contrast, professionally produced product videos using real actors can take days and cost tens of thousands of yuan, said Chen Jing, a vice president at the Technology and Strategy Research Institute.

"With the help of AI, the production cycle is reduced to less than two days, and costs fall to just one-tenth. This enables small and medium-sized businesses to generate content consistently and iterate quickly in emerging markets," Chen added.

Backed by hard tech

Zhongguancun Kejin Technology Co, a Beijing-based developer of large-model AI technology, said in a statement that its system can handle 80 percent of standardized inquiries — such as logistics tracking and product introductions — processing over 2,000 messages per day at just one-quarter the cost of human customer service.

The company noted that language barriers often cause major challenges in voice-based communication. For example, Southeast Asia is home to hundreds of dialects, while customers in the Middle East prefer real-time interactions in Arabic. Many cross-border businesses experience slow growth due to inefficient communication. Human customer service across time zones often falls short — overnight response rates in China can fall below 30 percent, according to client feedback. In contrast, AI-powered agents can efficiently deliver information and help shorten the order cycle.

From product-based to experience-driven consumption, AI is increasingly integrated into daily life, accelerating the shift toward smarter living. The global rise of virtual humans reflects both China's advancing technological capabilities and the growing sophistication of its digital trade services.

China's AI industry surpassed 700 billion yuan ($97.5?billion) in 2024, maintaining an annual growth rate of more than 20 percent for several consecutive years, according to the 56th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China released by the China Internet Network Information Center.

The report said that generative AI technology is increasingly being applied to real-world applications. As of June, 80.9 percent of users used generative AI tools to answer questions — the most common use among all functions.

China has achieved breakthroughs in domestically developed AI products in key areas such as trillion-parameter models and multimodal capabilities. These technologies are also being integrated into areas such as workplace collaboration, inclusive education, industrial design and content creation — forming a broad ecosystem of intelligent applications across multiple sectors.

In addition, leading Chinese tech firms are intensifying efforts to develop advanced language models. Liu Cong, president of iFLYTEK Research Institute, said at a Monday press conference that the company's newly upgraded Spark X1 now supports more than 130 languages and has outperformed GPT-4.1 in key languages such as Arabic, German, French, Korean and Japanese, according to media reports.

The model also supports voice recognition in 100 languages, surpassing the overall performance of Whisper V3. Its Spark speech synthesis model supports 55 languages.

China's AI market has entered a practical phase, with broad applications in e-commerce — from product selection and inventory forecasting to visual content optimization and remarketing, Chen said. Its increasing accessibility enables even small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to expand globally. Low entry barriers, easy replication, rapid iteration and engineering-ready tools allow SMEs to consistently produce content and test strategies in emerging markets, according to Chen.

Domestic development of large models has gained strong momentum. Since a major breakthrough in early 2025, DeepSeek has open-sourced several key technologies, accelerating industry-wide progress, Chen noted.

"Compared to six months ago, China's AI hardware and software ecosystem has undergone a dramatic transformation, with a surge in technological breakthroughs and increasing confidence in homegrown innovation," he said.