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NBER Working Papers · November 9, 2026 · On the brief until November 23, 2026

AI as Shared Business Infrastructure: Firm Growth and the Distribution of Gains -- by Panle Jia Barwick, Lu Fang, Jinhan Liu, Huilan Xu, Zhe Yuan

EconomicsEntrepreneurshipMarketing
THE AI ANGLE
Automating routine seller operations and generating product content

A study of a Chinese e-commerce platform found that embedding generative AI into seller software increased small merchant sales by 51.6 percent. Adopting businesses updated product lines faster and reduced staff time per order, with the smallest firms gaining the most. The shared technology expanded total market sales and stimulated new business entry.

Summary written by AI Business Lens with an AI model from the article at nber.org. It is not the article, and the publisher has not reviewed it. For publishers.

THE TEACHING ANGLE
The largest proportional gains went to the smallest firms because the platform tools lowered routine operating costs and reduced information frictions.

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