Tmall President Liu Bo, said on Thursday that the platform will significantly expand its investment in high-quality brands this year, combining consumer subsidies, new revenue tools, and agentic AI capabilities to help merchants cut costs and grow sales. 

Speaking at Tmall’s annual TopTalk merchant summit, Liu pointed to a strong 2025 as the foundation for this year’s push. The number of brands generating more than RMB100 million in annual sales grew 15% year-over-year, while more than 13,000 brands with sales above RMB10 million achieved double-digit GMV growth. Tmall’s 88VIP membership program expanded to nearly 60 million members, and new products launched exclusively on Tmall drove RMB120 billion in sales. AI tools, meanwhile, saved five million merchants a cumulative hundreds of billions of RMB in operating costs.

“Tmall’s investment in quality brands in 2026 will be more robust and comprehensive than ever,” Liu told attendees. “Tmall remains committed to supporting quality brands as the most reliable platform for brands’ long-term business growth.”

Tmall’s strategy for the year rests on three commitments. First, the platform will increase consumer subsidies through expanding 88VIP vouchers and upgrading its algorithm to give quality products greater reach. Driven by the strong momentum of this high-spending consumer cohort, the number of participating brand partners in 88VIP increased by 51% in 2025.

Second, two merchant revenue tools will be rolled out at scale. Tmall will commit RMB10 billion in AI-powered store coupons to accelerate conversion among new and potential customers. A new intelligent ad co-investment feature will see the platform automatically amplify high-performing ad placements.

Third, the platform will build out AI operational capabilities for merchants. Liu said the goal is to deploy AI as the “hands and feet” executing across daily operations.

Transforming E-commerce Operations with AI Agents

The centrepiece of Tmall’s 2026 roadmap is the launch of agentic capabilities for its Business Advisor tool. This upgrade will give every merchant a 24/7 AI Agent team capable of executing tasks across the full operational chain, from store analytics and ad placement to customer service and post-sale processes, within an enterprise-grade security environment.

The new Business Advisor will allow Tmall’s core cloud-based AI agentic skill sets to integrate with local files and CRM data, automating tasks ranging from store inspections and sales analysis to visual material generation and customer service needs.

The AI customer service tool Dianxiaomi, already piloted at 200,000 merchants with a 30% lift in conversion rates, will be upgraded to combine conversational guidance with direct task execution in a single session. Separately, Tmall’s innovation arm TMIC has integrated Alibaba’s Qwen model with Taobao’s product knowledge base, delivering a reported 20-fold improvement in new product development efficiency.

These new moves echo Alibaba’s broader AI strategy. Going forward, merchants will be able to access these e-commerce operating skills through Wukong, Alibaba’s AI-native enterprise platform.

“Tmall will continue to go all-in on quality brands,” Liu said, “offering merchants the platform with the most stable operating margins and the most sustainable brand growth.”