After competing in the AI search arena for most of 2025, China's major internet companies are welcoming a new player in e-commerce - Taobao is conducting gray-scale testing of its new "AI Universal Search" function. This represents Taobao's latest AI product in the e-commerce search domain.

As an AI Q&A product based on large language models, "AI Universal Search" supports deep thinking capabilities, allowing users to ask questions in natural language while the AI generates comprehensive "answer reports" that integrate text, products, videos, and images. This signifies that e-commerce recommendations will no longer rely solely on algorithm-based "guess what you like" suggestions - AI can go further, enabling platforms to more precisely "understand what you like."

This single-word difference reflects the accelerating pace of AI technology implementation in practical applications.

The core logic of past e-commerce business was primarily built on efficient traffic distribution, with platforms' core competitiveness centered on how to acquire, manage, and monetize traffic. However, entering the AI era, the most important factor may no longer be the absolute scale of traffic, but rather the "intelligence quotient" of the AI models carried by platforms.

In future platform competition landscapes, whoever's AI can more deeply understand users and provide personalized solutions that exceed user expectations will control the commercial gateway to the future.

Renowned venture capital firm a16z believes in its podcast that in the AI era, the importance of e-commerce platform advantages will shift toward data quality, AI capabilities, and ecosystem integration.

Consequently, the definition of e-commerce itself is being reshaped. It is no longer simply an "online retail" channel but is gradually evolving into a more advanced "intelligent solution service." Under this new model, platforms utilize AI's powerful capabilities not only to perceive users' existing explicit needs but also to analyze data and conversations to uncover and create potential needs that users themselves have not clearly recognized.

This insight will guide merchants in reverse to conduct precise product customization - what we commonly call the C2M (Consumer-to-Manufacturer) model, thereby optimizing efficiency across the entire industrial chain from demand to production.

Previously, cross-border e-commerce giants like Shein have already established flexible supply chain systems capable of rapidly and dynamically matching market demand through their famous "small batch, quick response" model. The addition of AI capabilities means this feedback loop between supply and demand will become more immediate and concrete.

For instance, in the apparel sector, future AI may not only predict next season's trending colors but also more precisely forecast specific cities' and communities' preferences for certain styles, materials, and functions, directly converting these specific demand parameters into production instructions and significantly shortening the distance from concept to finished product.

For the countless merchants on e-commerce platforms, this AI-driven transformation also means the game rules they're familiar with will face complete reconstruction. Under the old traffic-centric system, merchants needed to invest substantial capital and energy in traffic operations. However, in an era where AI search becomes mainstream, traffic allocation logic will undergo fundamental transformation, shifting from past "capital-driven" to future "value-driven" approaches.

More directly, AI is becoming each consumer's personal "buyer." Those classic routines and techniques revered in past marketing disciplines may gradually lose effectiveness when faced with AI's deep semantic understanding and multi-dimensional analytical capabilities.

For the entire business ecosystem, this is not necessarily negative. On the contrary, for companies that truly place their core competitiveness in product design, supply chain management optimization, and deep user service - these "good product" companies - an unprecedented period of development opportunity is emerging.

The enhancement of AI technological capabilities is pushing e-commerce, seemingly the most traditional internet business, to a critical historical juncture similar to the transformation from PC internet to mobile internet. This once again proves that AI's reconstruction of traditional internet has become irreversible.

From the turbulent changes in search engine markets to the rise of vertical search domains, and then to strategic adjustments following content platform and e-commerce platform competition, AI is reshaping the entire internet ecosystem.

However, we must also recognize that previously unresolved challenges still exist. How should data privacy boundaries be defined? Will algorithmic bias exacerbate market monopolization? How will technological costs affect the survival space of small and medium merchants? The answers to these questions will determine whether AI e-commerce can truly achieve inclusive and sustainable development.

It is foreseeable that e-commerce competition over the next decade will be a comprehensive contest of AI capabilities, data quality, and ethical governance. Those platforms and merchants that embrace technology early and face challenges directly may seize the initiative in this transformation, leading the industry toward a more efficient and humanized future.