In the Internet industry, B2B is a "living fossil" level track. Because players are too low-key, B2B always gives people a "quiet" feeling. However, a short video I saw on Moments a few days ago made me realize that the ancient B2B industry is undergoing drastic changes.

In this TVC with the theme of "B2B × Generative AI", I saw the new possibilities that generative AI brings to B2B: a large number of products released by merchants can use the product intelligent generation tool "AIGC" with one click, The business model of the entire wholesale store has undergone drastic changes as a result; when companies have purchasing needs, they can directly describe their needs to the "intelligent question and answer robot" to get the most suitable products; merchants can even "hire" "digital human anchors" 24/7 Live streaming of goods all year round...

This sci-fi-style short film was released by Baidu’s B2B industry overall solution and one-stop enterprise purchasing and sales platform “Ai Purchasing”, starring real actors and digital anchors. The combination of "real actors and digital people" is a metaphor for the B2B blueprint drawn by iProcurement: When B2B is combined with generative AI, the traditional corporate procurement field will usher in an unprecedented technological revolution.

B2B has been developing for many years, but the old pain points of enterprises are still there

B2B is one of the oldest in the Internet industry, having emerged as early as the early days of the Internet at the end of the last century. It is the origin of the e-commerce industry. The main value of B2B (Business to Business) platforms lies in connecting the two “B’s”. On the one hand, it connects customers with purchasing needs, on the other hand, it connects merchants who sell goods

Initially, B2B was presented in the form of a portal website. Products were classified and placed on different pages. Customers could select products according to categories when purchasing. Later, search engines became the main product form for people to obtain information and services. A large number of B2B search needs related to corporate procurement and merchant sales appeared in search engines such as Baidu. The integration of B2B and search engines accelerated development

Four years ago, Baidu integrated relevant B2B technical capabilities and product services and launched Aigou, a one-stop procurement and sales platform for enterprises. With search and AI genes, Aigouou has transformed the traditional B2B "portal" model. Relying on Baidu's precise search capabilities, AI technology and huge traffic potential, it provides demand-oriented services to a large number of precise users, becoming both accurate and convenient. A new generation of B2B platform.

It should be said that the B2B industry has been constantly evolving for more than 20 years to better meet the needs of enterprises on both sides of the procurement and sales ends. According to third-party estimates, the scale of my country's B2B industry will reach 15 trillion yuan in 2022. This is a vast market, and companies have extremely complex needs. Because of this, the two "B" pain points of the B2B industry still exist.

One is that the connection efficiency is still not high enough. It takes time and effort for customers to find products that suit them among a large number of products. For sellers, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack to obtain precise customers in the market, and the cost for this remains high.

The second is that operating costs are still a bit high. Under the trend of "multi-platform" decentralization, merchants are faced with more platforms and more stores to operate. In order to achieve successful sales, merchants need to invest more manpower in store operations, including product maintenance, marketing, customer service, data analysis, etc. There is a strong demand for cost reduction and efficiency improvement in every link.

The third one is that the business model is somewhat outdated. B2B platforms in the portal era are mainly responsible for providing "information", while B2B platforms in the search era gradually have value such as matching transactions. Nowadays, enterprise operations are being impacted by new models such as live streaming, D2C, and C2M. It is imperative for enterprises to accelerate digitalization and embrace new models.

The video TVC released by Aiguanchou allows the B2B industry to see the dawn of a new round of revolution. This large model has ushered in the AI ​​era. Artificial intelligence will become a productive force in all walks of life, and the corresponding production relations, organizational relations, and business models will also undergo drastic changes. With the support of generative AI, the B2B industry has also reached a moment of being completely reshaped

爱procurement uses generative AI to reshape the B2B industry

Baidu iPurchase was launched four years ago and has so far helped more than 350,000 companies achieve business growth. Baidu iPurchasing was born as a search engine and has a strong AI gene. It has already integrated NLP (natural language processing) technology and B2B knowledge graph and other technologies into its business to provide more accurate and convenient procurement and sales docking services for both buyers and sellers.

In 2023, large-scale models exploded rapidly and a consensus was quickly formed on a global scale. A new round of generative artificial intelligence revolution is in full swing, and artificial intelligence applications have officially entered the stage of industrialized mass production. Baidu has already been involved in large-scale models as early as 2019 and launched the Wenxin large model for the industry. After a long period of accumulation, Baidu announced Wen Xinyiyan’s invitation test plan in March this year, and took the lead in opening it to the whole society in August. In October, Baidu released the more powerful Wenxin Big Model 4.0

Backed by Baidu, Aigouou is extremely talented in the application of generative AI. It has also become the first player in the B2B industry to explore generative AI. As early as the second Baidu iProcurement Digital Intelligence Conference in June this year, iProcurement introduced generative AI to significantly upgrade its products and services, and opened up on-site experience. In August, Aiguou officially launched the “Intelligent Product Generation Tool”. Merchants can use this tool to easily perform daily operation and maintenance tasks such as creating store details pages. This capability has been verified by the market: Henan Liugong Graphite Co., Ltd. found when participating in internal testing that the application of generative AI can directly help the company save 5-6 human costs

"Product Intelligence Generation Tool" is just the starting point of B2B × generative AI. Baidu iProcurement is turning the B2B blueprint described in "science fiction movies" into reality

When making purchases, customers will have many questions to consult with the merchant. When the merchant's customer service pressure is high, the customer may need to wait in line. The "intelligent Q&A robot" is based on industry and enterprise-related knowledge base learning and can quickly and accurately answer customer questions. When the B2B platform applies "intelligent question and answer robots", it can greatly improve the consulting experience of purchasing customers, and on the other hand, it can help merchants significantly reduce customer service labor costs, and mine customer needs from "question and answer" to obtain merchant clues, and finally form orders.

"Digital Human Anchor" allows companies to quickly embrace the trend of live streaming with low cost and low threshold. Exploring live-streaming to bring goods requires a lot of investment in manpower and capital, and it also requires a large trial-and-error cost. Therefore, many companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, can only look at the trend of live-streaming to bring goods and sigh. With the support of digital anchors who love purchasing, companies can quickly customize their own anchors. In addition to allowing them to display products more vividly and three-dimensionally, they can also livestream and bring goods non-stop without worrying about the anchor "flying solo".

The underlying core technologies of “Intelligent Product Generation Tools”, “Intelligent Question and Answer Robots” and “Digital Human Anchors” are all generative AI. Compared with deep learning-driven AI technologies such as NLP and knowledge graphs, generative AI requires AI to create content "from scratch". These contents can not only be used in chatting, writing poems, couplets, etc. Entertainment scenarios such as painting can also be applied to production scenarios such as B2B e-commerce, helping companies reduce costs and increase efficiency in all aspects of operations such as information acquisition, marketing, material design, short film production, and live streaming.

In consumer-oriented e-commerce industries such as B2C and C2C, "intelligent product generation" and "digital human anchor" have begun to be applied. Today, Baidu iProcurement has taken the lead in bringing generative AI to the B2B industry, which means new possibilities for the implementation of generative AI and the upgrade of the B2B industry.

爱procurement has opened a window for the B2B industry

Among the generative AI warriors who "charge into battle" in the sci-fi style TVC of Love Purchase, only the "Digital Human Anchor" is still under development and planning, and the rest of the services have been launched. Compared with the products that have been or are about to be launched, I think the greater significance of this TVC is to open up a new imagination space of B2B × generative AI: It is not just AiProcurement itself that is changing, the platforms in the B2B industry As well as companies at both the procurement and sales ends, it’s time to pay attention to large model technology.

With the rise of large-scale models, generative artificial intelligence is rapidly being applied to all walks of life. Compared with deep learning, generative artificial intelligence and the large model technology behind it have a higher level of intelligence, not only with perception capabilities, but also with powerful cognitive capabilities. Therefore, generative artificial intelligence has a wider application field and is of greater help to human learning, life and work

As a key link in commodity circulation, trade has irreplaceable value in the economy, and B2B has long become infrastructure in procurement and sales trade. Looking forward to the future, in addition to digital marketing services such as intelligent product generation, digital human anchors, and intelligent Q&A customer service, generative AI will achieve more comprehensive, broader, and deeper applications in the B2B industry.

In recent years, the "D2C (Direct To Consumer)" model has emerged in the trade industry, and new retail species such as SHEIN have emerged. In this model, the supply chain bypasses traditional retail channels and conducts transactions directly with consumers. At the same time, the supply chain fully applies big data to gain insight into and even predict consumer demand, using new forms such as small orders, quick response, and agile and flexible supply chains. To manufacture products and obtain markets. Based on its unique business model, SHEIN has grown quietly under the eyes of ToC e-commerce giants. In terms of valuation, it has become the fourth largest unlisted company in the world and has become a "super unicorn".

To upgrade the business model, the B2B industry must make good use of new technologies. With the in-depth application of generative AI in the B2B industry, the platform can explore new B2B D2C trade models, and can also make more in-depth use of AI technology to improve the efficiency of product insights, intelligent marketing, intelligent customer service, and anti-fraud.

In fact, whether it is generative AI or deep learning, they are essentially technical tools that serve human beings. Technology itself has direct effects such as reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and it can also force or catalyze changes in business models - Internet technology has given birth to e-commerce, OTA, food delivery, sharing economy, mobile payment, smart Hardware and other new business models. Because of this, enterprises must not only embrace the tool of generative AI technology, but also refresh their cognition, embrace AIGC thinking, and apply generative AI technology to every corner of their operations. I think this is the deep meaning of this sci-fi style TVC by Aiguang: it not only shows the achievements of Aipou in B2B × generative AI technology, but also opens a large model window for the B2B industry, allowing Many enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, can see the future and make a difference.

In June of this year, iPurchase released new products reconstructed with generative AI at the Second Digital Intelligence Conference, taking the lead in introducing generative AI into the traditional B2B industry. The release of this TVC short film is the best proof that iProcurement is continuing to reshape the B2B business model - a new generation of B2B platform is about to emerge. Relying on Baidu Wenxin's far-leading large model and generative AI technology, as well as its years of deep cultivation in the B2B industry scene, it seems inevitable that Aiguang will become a "leader" from the "pioneer" of B2B x generative AI.

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