An NBER study of small sellers on a leading Chinese e-commerce platform, which built generative AI into the software firms use to run their shops, found that adopting it raised monthly sales by 51.6%, driven mainly by a 47.0% increase in the number of orders
NBER Working Paper 36003, published in 2026, found that adopting generative AI raised monthly sales by 51.6% for small sellers on a leading Chinese e-commerce platform. This increase was primarily driven by a 47.0% rise in the number of orders. The study focused on firms with annual sales below RMB 5 million.
Verified 2026-11-12
Track with InsiderWhy it matters
When AI comes built into software businesses already use, even the smallest firms can win real sales, which makes platforms a key route for AI to pay off.
More on Adoption
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index, citing McKinsey's 2025 survey, breaks down AI-agent deployment by business function. Even in IT, the function with the most agent activity, the share of organisations reporting no AI-agent use at all in 2025 was still 69% of organizations report zero AI-agent use in IT, the business function with the heaviest agent activity
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index reports that organizations' use of generative AI specifically, not just AI overall, grew sharply in 2025: the share of organizations that regularly use generative AI in at least one business function reached 79%, up from 71% in 2024
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index compared generative AI's adoption curve after its mass-market debut to that of earlier transformative technologies, and found generative AI reached 53% population adoption within three years, faster than the PC or the internet
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