AI agents pave way for greener exports

Going beyond sales automation tools, AI agents are becoming a critical link in helping Vietnamese exporters optimise their supply chains, improve emissions data transparency, and overcome green trade barriers such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and environmental, social, and governance requirements to gain deeper access to global markets.

For years, Vietnamese exporters have primarily competed on cost and product quality. However, as sustainable development increasingly becomes a mandatory requirement, competitive advantages are no longer determined solely by production costs, but also by businesses’ ability to control emissions and ensure transparency in environmental data.

At a business matching conference on understanding AI agents, organised by Alibaba and the Ho Chi Minh City Trade and Investment Promotion Centre (ITPC) on August 6, Ethan Wang, global product and services director for sellers at Alibaba, said small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) currently face numerous barriers when entering international markets, including a shortage of specialised personnel, the time required to adapt to the global business environment, as well as pressure from trade regulations and language barriers.

“Against this backdrop, AI agents are emerging as “digital assistants” capable of taking over many repetitive tasks, helping businesses process data and make decisions more quickly,” said Wang.

Le Anh Hoang, deputy director of the ITPC, said AI agents were helping businesses narrow the gap in resources, strengthen management capabilities, and compete more confidently in international markets.

According to Hoang, AI adoption helps optimise costs but also enables businesses to meet increasingly stringent export standards.

“If businesses previously competed primarily on scale and cost, the ability to apply technology and leverage data is now becoming a key factor determining their competitiveness and ability to participate in global value chains,” he said.

Alongside this trend, cross-border e-commerce continues to strengthen its role as a new growth driver for exports.

According to Hoang, as a major economic hub of the country, Ho Chi Minh City considers the business community an important driver of economic growth. However, many businesses, particularly SMEs, continue to face significant challenges in their digital transformation and efforts to expand into international markets.

These challenges include limited human resources and market research capabilities, language barriers, the cost of finding customers, and limited access to and ability to adopt new technologies.

“Against this backdrop, AI is no longer a technology of the future but has become an essential tool for businesses to improve productivity, optimise costs, automate processes, analyse customer data, and enhance the efficiency of their export activities on e-commerce platforms,” he said.

At the event, Alibaba introduced Accio Work, an agentic AI-powered business team designed specifically for SMEs, to Vietnam’s export-oriented business community for the first time. The platform positions agentic AI not merely as a productivity-enhancing tool, but as a new operating model that could help shape the future of global trade.

Accio Work is a next-generation AI agent platform for businesses. It operates as a team of specialised AI agents that can autonomously coordinate to manage end-to-end business processes, helping streamline export operations and enabling businesses to deploy the solution immediately through a plug-and-play model, without requiring programming skills or complex technical configurations.

Roger Luo, head of South and Southeast Asia at Alibaba, said that in the context of global trade, AI was no longer a technology of the future, but a core infrastructure, reshaping the way businesses operate. Accio Work’s AI agent platform is designed to help SMEs and solopreneurs access and operate in global markets with execution capabilities comparable to those of larger enterprises.

Vietnam is currently one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing export-oriented economies. According to Alibaba, the number of new Vietnamese exporters joining the platform increased by around 10 per cent on-year between April 2025 and March 2026, highlighting growing demand for technology adoption and access to international markets.

However, to fully capitalise on this opportunity, businesses cannot rely on AI merely as a sales support tool. More importantly, they need to integrate AI across the entire value chain, from production, management and logistics to emissions management and environmental, social, and governance reporting.

Experts discuss AI agents paving the way for greener exports. Photo: Bich Ngoc

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