In 2025, the penetration rate of AI in cross-border e-commerce will be astonishingly high.
Amazon’s official report shows that 98% of Chinese sellers surveyed have used AI tools, and third-party sellers created more than 12 million listings with the help of AI throughout the year.
Today’s AI has brought a real efficiency revolution to the industry.
It can generate listings in several languages within a few minutes, produce full-link marketing materials in batches, respond to multilingual inquiries 24/7, and efficiently complete massive market data analysis and delivery optimization.
It greatly reduces the cost of standardized operations, greatly expands the feasible set of the industry, and allows small teams to easily implement it.
However, improvements in efficiency did not immediately translate into a boom in profits.
In the first quarter of 2026, China’s cross-border e-commerce exports reached 473.55 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5%.
The macro data is making steady progress, but the top sellers at the micro level have shown obvious deviations.
Looking at the first-quarter battle reports of 15 cross-border e-commerce companies that went public, about 60% of them saw a year-on-year decline in net profits.
An abnormal phenomenon has emerged. Revenue is still stable or even expanding, but cash flow is collectively tight.
Where did the money go?
On the one hand, there are rising cross-border thresholds and costs, such as the involution of advertising, increases in overseas warehouses, logistics and platform commissions, and even inventory backlogs, etc. These problems will significantly consume cash flow.
On the other hand, companies are actively investing their cash flow into the AI arms race. Leading companies are focusing on large-scale model fine-tuning, agent automation, and overseas computing infrastructure. Cross-border industries are still increasing investment in AI.
However, this productivity reconstruction is still in the investment stage, and the profitability of AI has not yet fully exploded.
This is why there is a seemingly contradictory situation at the moment: on one hand, there is an efficiency carnival in the entire industry, and on the other hand, there is profit pain in financial reports.
Enterprises are collectively betting and waiting for AI to evolve from a cost reduction tool to a growth engine, thus starting a new growth cycle for cross-border e-commerce.
When AI pushes operational efficiency to the extreme, the upper limit of growth lies in who can deeply integrate the supply chain, compliance, performance and product capabilities. The real transaction always falls on those physical links.
In the AI era, these four pain points are still bottlenecks restricting cross-border growth.
In terms of compliance boundaries, with the help of AI, sellers can simultaneously expand into multiple markets in Europe, America, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, significantly lowering the threshold for expansion.
However, as the market expands, compliance regulations in various countries are also tightened simultaneously.
The U.S. tariff policy continues to change, the EU EPR is mandatory, and product safety regulations such as the STURDY Act are emerging one after another. The compliance complexity of cross-border operations is only increasing.
AI can complete tasks such as early warning of infringement risks, and can handle tedious processes such as offline certification, document submission, and qualification follow-up, which cannot be separated from dedicated personnel.
Tools can only share the workload, and the main body of risk-taking is always people.
In terms of fulfillment capabilities, AI can efficiently execute these standardized links such as sales forecasts, replenishment cycle calculations, last-mile routes, and logistics cost streamlining.
But all data models are based on one premise: goods can be shipped out and delivered stably.
Without spot reserves, overseas warehouse layout, and stable terminal logistics channels, no matter how beautiful the efficiency plan is, it is just numbers on paper.
In particular, the pain points of medium and large items are more prominent. Real problems such as warehousing, large item delivery, and reverse returns and exchanges can only be handled by mature overseas warehouse entities. Algorithms cannot replace real warehousing and logistics resources.
In terms of product selection capabilities, AI can quickly integrate and analyze massive information such as market trends, competitive product dynamics, and consumer trends, and is now an essential tool for sellers to select products.
Optional products are never simply a matter of data calculation. Many key information such as local users’ consumption preferences, regional cultural differences, and fleeting fashion trends are outside the data.
Algorithms are good at reviewing the patterns of popular products, but it is difficult to accurately predict demand.
Even if a clear trend conclusion is output, it will ultimately require real product testing to complete the verification.
Judgment of popular products ultimately requires people to weigh based on experience.
In terms of product capabilities, AI can produce graphic and text details, marketing materials, and multilingual speech in batches in a short time.
But attracting users to place orders is only the first step. The core of retaining customers is always the product itself.
What consumers ultimately consider is quality, timeliness, and after-sales experience.
Long-term repurchase and user trust will only come from stable and excellent products and supporting services.
AI is good at data, process and efficiency upgrades, while humans are responsible for supply chain decision-making, risk control and actual project implementation.
AI will not replace the supply chain, and the supply chain cannot improve efficiency without AI. The integration of the two is the core competitiveness of current cross-border e-commerce.
AI is an amplifier.
It will amplify the value of high-quality supply chains and allow good goods to reach the world faster; it will also amplify the shortcomings of weak links and expose existing problems at an accelerated pace.
Players with solid abilities will be even more powerful with the support of AI.
Players who only have tools and no base will eventually be counterattacked by efficiency.
In the future, the two-wheel drive of “AI + supply chain” will be the answer to long-term survival.
Some platforms have always adhered to this route: on the one hand, they build a digital platform and integrate AI tools such as Yizhi Rubik’s Cube to provide sellers with full-link operational efficiency empowerment and capture the technological dividends of the AI era.
On the one hand, we will continue to deepen the overseas warehouse system, polish the capabilities of pallets and quality control services, and provide supply chain support for cross-border enterprises going overseas.
Based on this, the platform continues to increase its empowerment measures and launches limited-time rights and interests activities for the industry: when you join, you will receive a Yizhi Rubik’s Cube AI tool generation experience worth 1,000 yuan. It relies on millions of SKU pallets to help sellers operate light assets and feed back supply chain capabilities.
The platform is dedicated to linking supply and demand, helping sellers and factories go overseas more smoothly.
Welcome to register and experience, and build a new cross-border ecology together!
