A New Wealth Creation Opportunity for Ordinary People? Entrepreneurs in the AI Boom Reduce Workforce by Half and Open Dozens of Stores with AI
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Late at night, Huang Xuefeng's company is empty. In the dark office, a corner is illuminated by six computers. These six computers seem to be controlled by an invisible hand, with the mouse cursors moving rapidly across the screens, occasionally jumping to new pages.
In 2023, the biggest gain for Huang Xuefeng's company was this 'invisible hand.' He purchased five RPA (Robotic Process Automation) accounts, which can simulate various human operations, performing automated actions like mouse clicks, keyboard inputs, and reading information on any application.
With RPA technology, Huang Xuefeng's company reduced its workforce by half while simultaneously opening dozens of cross-border e-commerce stores. Shadow Knife Company has built-in three major AI functions—NLP, large models, and CV—into its RPA software. Those proficient in using RPA software can earn several thousand yuan more than ordinary operations staff in the job market.
(AI Stefanie Sun on Bilibili)
2023 has been dubbed the "Year of AI." At the beginning of the year, ChatGPT sparked widespread public discussion, followed by the viral popularity of "AI Stefanie Sun." Major companies quickly entered the field to explore opportunities. Alibaba Cloud launched "Tongyi Qianwen," which gained international fame by generating dancing videos from a single photo by year-end. Baidu introduced "Wenxin Yiyan," which surpassed 100 million users. ByteDance launched the chatbot "Coze" overseas. This technology, which was once inherently perceived as distant and inaccessible, has now permeated the daily lives of the general public. In the commercial sector, e-commerce businesses are also undergoing transformations powered by AI.
Huang Xuefeng's company has a special zone. There are six computers set up there, but only one chair. An employee sits on an office chair, sliding back and forth in front of the computers, only needing to occasionally manage these six machines.
"Those six computers are also my employees, and they work around the clock without interruption," Huang Xuefeng said. Huang Xuefeng has been navigating the cross-border e-commerce industry for nearly 14 years. From a penniless young man to a seasoned e-commerce veteran managing a company with annual sales of hundreds of millions, his success required not only market acumen but also the courage to pivot quickly. His company underwent two major disruptive transformations: first, by establishing Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and expanding product categories; second, by "hiring" AI employees in 2023.
![Huang Xuefeng's company]
Before 2020, Huang Xuefeng operated a traditional e-commerce business on AliExpress, Alibaba's cross-border platform, selling cameras like many other merchants. Huang and his wife managed factory production on the backend while operating storefronts and serving overseas customers on the frontend. The company had about 70 employees running four stores. During the pandemic, affected by overseas chip controls on China, the store once fell into a low period. Finding new suppliers, expanding product categories, and opening new stores became his lifeline at that time.
Based on Huang Xuefeng's past business experience, opening a new store typically takes about 3 months. In the past, a store had only one main manager, known as the "store manager model." The manager had to coordinate with various departments, such as communicating details with the design department for images. All these trivial tasks added up, resulting in low efficiency.
To speed up the store-opening process, he abandoned the "store manager model" and instead broke down each step of store opening and operation, establishing a set of SOPs. "Every step is detailed to specify which software to open and where to click with the mouse." New employees can now get up to speed in as little as 3 hours. With effective process guidance, a 60-year-old aunt in the warehouse can package 150–180 parcels in an hour and earn a salary 1.5 times higher than the industry average. During Huang Xuefeng's company's first transformation, the AI industry is also undergoing significant changes. Cambricon, known as the 'first AI chip stock,' officially listed on the STAR Market with a 288.26% surge on its debut. iFlytek, specializing in intelligent voice input, has surpassed a market cap of 100 billion RMB. AI companies like Megvii, SenseTime, and Yitu, focused on computer vision, are also experiencing an IPO boom.
At that time, Huang Xuefeng was busy visiting factories and sourcing products. In just two years, the company expanded to 70 stores, covering categories such as home goods, cosmetics, sports and outdoor gear, and auto parts, with the workforce growing to 100 employees.
While SOP improved efficiency, Huang Xuefeng also noticed its drawbacks. 'On one hand, employees were burdened with repetitive tasks, leading to high turnover rates. On the other hand, as the number of stores increased, personnel costs also grew significantly.' Taking financial positions as an example, companies need to withdraw money from store backends every two days, converting USD to RMB. Financial personnel must log into accounts, click through backends, withdraw amounts, exchange currencies, etc. For 60 stores, this operation needs to be repeated 60 times - an extremely standardized yet tedious process.
In November 2022, Huang Xuefeng discovered RPA technology by chance. RPA (Robotic Process Automation) can simulate human actions to perform automated operations like mouse clicks, keyboard inputs, and data reading across any application.
Implementing RPA in e-commerce scenarios requires purchasing software accounts from providers and hiring technical personnel. The annual cost of one account is significantly lower than that of a basic employee. "Let's try it!" Without hesitation after learning about the technology, Huang Xuefeng purchased five accounts at once. In recent years, many domestic companies have adopted RPA technology to develop software robot applications that can operate interfaces like humans. The stability of program code can also reduce error rates caused by manual operations.
Recommended by a junior, Huang Xuefeng tried Yingdao RPA software. In the backend, operators can build automated applications like assembling blocks through drag-and-drop, automating tasks such as "data collection, form filling, automatic replies, and financial invoice processing."
Bottle, an employee at Yingdao, told us that in some large-scale e-commerce companies, RPA software has become an indispensable office assistant. Besides retail e-commerce brands like "Aokang," "Semir," "Blue Moon," and "Anta," MCN companies such as Xinxuan Group and Yaowang Technology also use RPA to streamline office processes. (Shadow Knife Company)
To help non-developers quickly get started with RPA programs, Shadow Knife has launched related training courses and established a complete RPA certification system. "As we understand, in regions like Guangzhou and Shenzhen, such certificates are quite recognized in the job market. Operations personnel with certification earn an average of 2,000 yuan more than those without." In recent years, Shadow Knife has provided virtual labor to over 30,000 companies. In 2023, inquiries about Shadow Knife's solutions increased fivefold compared to 2022.
Shadow Knife has integrated mainstream large model technologies into its secondary engineering, launching the Shadow Knife AI series of features and products. In 2023, Shadow Knife achieved 100% growth despite uncertain market conditions. For Huang Xuefeng who adopted RPA software, it marked a turning point for his company.
He decomposed the originally established SOP processes, averaging 20-30 nodes per workflow. For standardized tasks deemed replaceable by robots, he built corresponding business processes in the RPA software. Through this automation, financial currency extraction and exchange operations that previously took over 6 hours were compressed to just 2-3 hours.
After "hiring" AI employees, the workforce required for operations reduced from 40 staff members to just 20. The most visible transformation for the company was the accelerated store opening pace - achieving double the expansion speed with streamlined personnel. Huang Xuefeng's company now operates 120 stores. For Huang Xuefeng, increasing the number of stores can boost sales, while customer reviews drive repurchase rates. AI employees can identify risky comments in the backend, assess potential negative impacts on the store, and implement tailored after-sales solutions based on different scenarios.
Huang's vision for AI goes beyond this. "In the future, I hope to use AI to build a database and develop our company's AI model," he said.
In addition to adopting RPA technology, last year merchants explored various possibilities under the AI trend. When Zhang Xin received his first order for his casually operated online store, he couldn't believe it. By profession a programmer, Zhang had some familiarity with AI-related processes due to his work. Since early last year, he had been tinkering with and studying Midjourney, an AI drawing tool that generates images from text prompts.
Driven by curiosity, Zhang created a set of artistic portraits for his own child. He recalls his initial attempts with the tool—uploading a blurry sample image only to get results with significant deviations, like images showing his child with six fingers. Through continuous optimization and refining his instructions, the outputs gradually improved. At first glance, the generated images resemble real photographs, but closer inspection reveals subtle brushstroke-like imperfections, giving them a painterly, oil-on-canvas quality.
Priced at less than 30 yuan per set with options to place subjects in different scenes, Zhang's AI-generated portraits attracted a flood of orders from mothers when he posted samples online. With their high cost-performance ratio and quick turnaround, his shop processed up to 1,500 orders in peak months. "Mothers love sharing on social media," Zhang observes, "and AI art portraits of their babies offer something novel for them." After AI became popular, a large number of posts teaching 'how to operate AI to make money' appeared online, with prices ranging from 8.8 yuan to 888 yuan. Zhang Xin said, 'Most tool-related content can be self-taught by searching for free materials online.' Whether buying their courses can actually help you make money is another question, but selling courses has indeed made some people very wealthy.
In his view, the technology for AI image generation-related businesses is already quite mature and easy for ordinary people to pick up. The hardest part isn't learning the tools through courses but finding new demands.
After less than half a year in business, the baby art photo business has seen many competitors emerge. To find new growth opportunities for his store, Zhang Xin launched several new products, such as colorizing and restoring old photos and custom cartoon avatars from real photos. However, as more people join the field, the customer acquisition speed for new models has become very limited. The new year will undoubtedly see the continued rise of AI. Moving beyond market hype, entrepreneurs will increasingly focus on genuine demand, practical applications, and long-term benefits.