New analysis reveals surge in solo entrepreneurship as AI lowers startup barriers

Alibaba.com released new insights from more than 15,000 applications it has received to date for its global CoCreate Pitch competition. The findings reveal that artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping entrepreneurship and empowering solopreneurs, with 71% of applicants identifying as one-person businesses, up sharply from 40% in last year’s competition.

Of these solo founders, 89% said AI tools are essential to their entrepreneurial journey, helping them fill critical capability gaps in areas such as industrial design, coding and marketing. The findings underscore the rapid rise of the agentic business, a new model in which AI agents handle the work that once required entire teams, lowering the barriers to starting a business and enabling founders to build, launch and scale with leaner teams.

AI adoption goes mainstream across every generation

Over 70% of entrepreneur applicants to the CoCreate Pitch competition are now building with AI, a significant jump from last year. This surge is cross-generational, with usage rates surpassing 80% across all age groups, from Gen Z to millennials to Gen Xers born before 1980.

Alibaba.com announced the return of CoCreate Pitch last month, with a total prize pool of more than $1 million and competition finals taking place in both the U.S. and Europe. The competition has received applications from entrepreneurs across 132 countries to date.

This year marks a pivotal shift from past editions, as Accio Work, Alibaba.com’s plug-and-play enterprise AI agent built for SMEs, has made the dream of launching a business from scratch simpler and more attainable for founders worldwide. As global trade evolves from traditional business-to-business commerce to agent-to-agent commerce, CoCreate Pitch entries are offering an early look at how that shift is taking shape.

From B2B to agent-to-agent commerce

“This year’s application trends show that AI is rewriting the rules of entrepreneurship and fuelling the rise of one-person companies, making it possible for one person to accomplish in a single day what used to require multiple specialists,” said Liz Wang, Global Head of Commercial Strategy at Alibaba.com. “We reduced the CoCreate Pitch application form to just six fields because AI can understand the depth behind even a simple pitch, instantly identifying pain points, logic and potential. This points to the future of agent-to-agent commerce, where AI can interact with suppliers, logistics providers and factories on a business owner’s behalf, helping small businesses compete and win in the next era.”

Nearly 35% of U.S. applicants cited burnout from their current jobs as a key motivation for starting their own businesses. U.S. founders also showed a strong ‘idea-first’ pattern: 40.5% had not yet secured a contract manufacturer but had already built polished brand websites and 3D product renderings.

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Applicants from the United Kingdom stood out for the high share of professionals pursuing entrepreneurship. Nearly 12% currently work as healthcare professionals, while 10% work in engineering or technology and 6% in finance or consulting. In France and Germany, sustainability stood out as a defining entrepreneurial theme. Across applicants from these two markets, 19% of projects focused on environmentally friendly or sustainable products.

This year, CoCreate Pitch is divided into three tracks: the General SMEs Track, the 0-to-1 Startup Track and the Students Track. The 0-to-1 Startup Track, designed for founders using Accio Work to bring raw ideas to life, currently accounts for 65% of all applications, reflecting strong momentum among early-stage entrepreneurs using AI to move from concept to prototype and launch.