This November 11th, (“11.11”, also known as Double 11, or Singles Day in China), is an e-commerce shopping festival where single people celebrate their independence and give themselves permission to indulge in buying items they’ve been wanting, at great prices. This year, parent company Alibaba is fully integrating new GenAI capabilities at scale into its massive Taobao and Tmall e-commerce platforms in ways that take personalization to a new level, add far wider-ranging recommendations, and include unexpectedly endearing, conversational suggestions. The two shopping platforms together cover over 2 billion listings. Total 2024 11.11 sales for Alibaba were $167 billion and are expected to be even higher in 2025, eclipsing Amazon Prime’s estimated $24 billion in sales this past July, 2025.
More Complex Context Queries From Consumers And More Helpful And Personalized Recommendations
Alibaba’s search engines now better understand more complex contexts and the longer, more conversational queries searchers increasingly use. The e-commerce giant is reporting a double-digit improvements in result relevance, click throughs, and conversions in response to the more nuanced customer queries, because the platforms now deliver even more relevant matches between products, customer wants, and promotional offers. Taobao’s recommendations go above and beyond products to buy, and are helpful in other welcome ways.
Cheryl Huang, a Chinese graduate student in the Masters in Visual Arts program at New York University shared a recent example with Taobao’s new AI Universal Search capability that she translated for me, from its “Deepthink” and “Shopping Preference” modes. Cheryl asked “What should I feed my Bichon Frisé dog that has a tear stain?”. The AI first identified the problems behind the “tear stain” symptom, which are irritation and inflammation. It then provided comprehensive, scientific feeding advice, nutritional supplements and dog food recommendations, including natural, every day foods, like vegetables they might already have in their pantries. It also suggested safety precautions for how to avoid reactions to diet changes, and offered daily care coordination tips. Cheryl felt she was getting an education on how to treat her pet, as much as purchase recommendations. Taobao’s language was surprisingly warm, like talking to a friend. The shopping interaction ended with the cheerful reassurance her pet would get better: “Based on the above dietary adjustments, 90% of Bichons can achieve complete remission in 6 months, and your little marshmallow will be back to his prior good health.”
Lucy Dou, a Chinese fashion and editorial model based in NYC, shared her experience with Taobao’s newest AI features. “I’ve used the “Personal Preference” tool recently when I was trying to find a chocolate brown color, suede trench coat. Before, when I shopped on Taobao, I usually just put in the name of the piece I’m looking for, and let the search engine provide me with what’s available. But with the Personal Preference tool, I’m able to put in specific terms like “long trench”, “genuine suede”, “chic brown”, and it’ll provide me with styling tips, accessories to go with it, stores they recommend, and even tips on how to clean and deal with suede material garments. As someone who works in fashion and has a personal style, this feature provided me with more thoughts on how to style certain items, and it also gives me a touch of a Pinterest vibe.”
The AI Wish List Feature
Based on recent prior purchases, Taobao provided Cheryl Huang with a wish list for 11.11 shopping that she said knew better what she wanted, than she did. It noticed she liked to make the dessert Tiramisu, so it recommended tools and baking pans. Because her Bichon Frisé is so tiny, she bought cat toys for it in the past. Taobao’s engine recommended cat toys it thought her dog would like. The product recommendations came with relevant promotional offers that might have been hard or time-consuming for her to search for, so she felt she was getting the best deal possible. The engine knew Cheryl had knee problems a few months back, so it recommended protective sleeves and relevant exercise equipment. Because the content that came back around Cheryl’s interests was so educational, relevant, and varied, it was fun and engaging to read.
The AI Virtual Try-on/Fitting Room
Customers can create avatars of themselves, with varying degrees of success and effort, so they can try on clothes and easily accessorize them. There is a simpler tool which only requires one static photo to create your avatar, and a more detailed version that requires more skill and patience on the part of the user. The technology has advanced so clothes can be more vividly visualized, including fabric textures, color gradations, and how the materials fold, stretch and drape, providing a better sense of how each garment would look and fit on each person.
For Merchants
Alibaba’s AI generated content (AIGC) tools help merchants better identify prospective customers more cost-effectively. It also helps them more efficiently create relevant marketing messaging at scale through the new video generation feature that can produce great content from just a few static product images. It’s now creating 5 million videos monthly, and click through rates from these more effective ads is up a reported 10%. The upgraded AI Business Advisor tool provides analytics for merchants that include dynamic pricing recommendations, operations improvement ideas, and suggested timing for targeted couponing based on a better understanding of where the consumer is on their purchase journey.
11/11’s 2025 Enhanced GenAI Is A Win For Consumers, Merchants, Tmall & Taobao
This year’s generative AI enhancements for shoppers, merchants, and Alibaba is a virtuous cycle:
– Consumers are more likely to find exactly what they want at the best price
– Merchants more accurately and creatively surface products based on customer query context, with visuals, text, and coupon offers that are optimized for conversion
– For Alibaba, happier customers, and better ROI and higher conversions for vendors means more sales and profit.