Look Out, Singles' Day – Here Comes Amazon

The biggest sales day of the year is powered by an unseen army of employees...

And not one of them is human.

Every November, the world's largest shopping festival takes place... but it's not Black Friday or Cyber Monday. It's China's "Singles' Day."

Originally conceived as a celebration of single people, Singles' Day has since exploded into a retail event unlike any other.

In 2022 alone, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (BABA) – the company behind Singles' Day – reported sales of more than $85 billion in a single day. Amazon's (AMZN) Prime Day brought in $12 billion that year.

Handling this kind of volume isn't just a logistical challenge. It's a pressure test on how efficiently Alibaba can manage sales, customer support, and orders... all without missing a beat.

But what makes Singles' Day really incredible isn't just the sales numbers. From the outside, you'd think an enormous team was working around the clock to keep things running smoothly.

And there is an enormous team... only it's not who you'd expect.

From customer service to sales posters, the Singles' Day operations are almost entirely driven by AI tools...

There's Alime Shop Assistant, the friendly "customer-service rep" who answers your questions about products and can track down your order status.

Back in 2019, Alime was already handling a whopping 97% of customer support questions on Singles' Day... about 300 million questions in total.

The marketing team is shored up by Taobao Wenwen, who works behind the scenes, customizing deals based on your browsing history. Taobao can mock up custom product images in as little as 30 seconds for the millions of goods on sale.

And for folks looking to purchase goods by voice, Tmall Genie will take your order. In 2019 alone, it processed orders for 1.4 million tons of rice and more than 800,000 eggs.

All these tools both save and generate a ton of cash for Alibaba.

Alime, for example, does the work of an estimated 85,000 customer-service representatives on Singles' Day alone. If Alibaba didn't have Alime, it would either have to keep a lot more staff on hand... or settle for lost sales from unfulfilled customer requests.

Like any other employee, Alime can even improve with experience. It gets smarter with each customer interaction, learning more about how to close sales and handle increasingly complex requests.

During Singles' Day, it's in constant communication with Tmall Genie. Customers who prefer to order by voice can simply tell Genie what they want.

It will handle the order, suggest complementary items, and even help schedule deliveries – all while the customer stays hands-free.

This setup is the dream for most companies...

But most companies are not Alibaba. The e-commerce giant doesn't sell these tools. And it certainly doesn't sell them to American companies.

That's why U.S. businesses are taking matters into their own hands.

E-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) has spent years developing its own AI tools, just as Alibaba has. And this year, it's ready for its own version of Singles' Day.

The annual Prime Day sales event takes place next week. Amazon is leaning into AI shopping like never before.

It's introducing an AI feature called "Interests" that lets you build a custom prompt based on your shopping preferences. The Amazon shopping app will automatically scour its inventory for products you may like based on the prompt.

It also offers Rufus, which is Amazon's version of the Alime AI sales rep. And Amazon Lens will let folks use their camera to take photos of items they want, and the AI will find its closest match.

If Alibaba's success with Singles' Day is any indication, these tools could help Amazon sell more products than ever.

In any case, this year's Prime Day results will be telling. If sales start pouring in, it's proof that Amazon's AI investments are already starting to pay off.

Regards,

Joel Litman
July 1, 2025