Sourcing

As a tool for finding the product, we have found at the time of writing this post, AI still struggles in finding suppliers of specific products. We think this is because the factories tend not to be very good in thoroughly publishing what they can offer, so unfortunately, there’s still leg work needed to build you factory list and contact them directly. 

Quotes

AI can help with quoting. It’s very easy to convert CNY or USD into your local currency. It can also help to identify tax obligations but it’s not always accurate so ensure you ask the factory which HS code they use for the product and look it up using https://www.simplyduty.com/import-calculator/. 
For freight, it’s not a great tool for quoting. You must ask a local freight forwarder but https://ship.freightos.com/ is a great tool for freight quotes.

Safety Standards

Here is in my opinion where AI really shines. Finding conformity standards for a product used to be such a pain, now you can paste a link to the product and ask, ‘what are the conformity standards needed for this product for the UK’ and it lists them out. It’s so convenient.

Factory Audits

AI is ok at doing background checks, but it still leaves many gaps. The problem is, many factories are not great at self-publication, so the search is unable to find the info that is needed online. Also, many of the Chinese government sites that show the factory’s turnover, employees, legal history etc, block AI so you still must check them manually and these sites are all in Chinese. You can ask a factory if they have been audited, and many have. Ensure it is a third-party audit from a company like HQTS, Intertek or TUV.

Manufacturing Agreements

Helpful in drafting formal agreements but often the agreements are unnecessarily deep, which can frustrate manufacturers and if something does go wrong, you likely can’t enforce the contract as you do don’t live in China, and you likely do not speak Chinese. If you’re really concerned about getting what you pay for, try and use Alibaba’s Trade Assurance.
Ensure your agreement with the factory really thoroughly covers product specs to ensure everyone is on the same page and if something goes wrong, you can point to the agreement to support your claim. 

Inspection

AI is ok at helping you find inspection companies, but most of the time it recommends the large inspection companies such as Intertek and TUV. These can often be more expensive than a local independent inspection company that often do a great job for half the price.

In Conclusion

While AI is rapidly becoming an indispensable ally in the China sourcing process, its current utility is best described as a powerful assistant, not a fully autonomous agent.

AI excels at tasks requiring rapid information synthesis and compliance checks, particularly in the realm of safety standards, where it instantly identifies necessary UK conformity requirements, saving significant time and effort. It also proves useful in the initial stages of quoting (currency conversion) and drafting manufacturing agreements, though these drafts often require significant simplification to be practical for Chinese manufacturers.

However, the analysis highlights that essential “leg work” remains crucial. Due to Chinese factories’ limited digital presence and restricted access to key governmental databases, AI struggles with true supplier discovery and in-depth factory audits. These tasks still demand human intervention, manual checks of Chinese-language sites, and reliance on accredited third-party audit reports (like those from Intertek or TUV). Similarly, while AI can find large inspection companies, local knowledge is still needed to identify cost-effective independent inspectors.

Ultimately, a successful sourcing strategy leverages AI for speed and compliance filtering while reserving human expertise for relationship building, negotiation, manual verification of factory legitimacy, and securing optimal logistics and inspection services.