Building content from the ground up at Alibaba

Company: Alibaba — Accio & AI Mode Role: Content Strategist (Contract) Duration: 3 months Scope: Audit · Style guide · Feature content

The Problem

When I joined, Alibaba's Accio platform and its emerging AI Mode had no shared content foundation — no voice and tone guidelines, no agreed-upon terminology, and no component-level content patterns. As both products scaled rapidly with AI at their core, the absence of content infrastructure was becoming a liability: inconsistent language across the experience, no standards for how the AI communicated with users, and no framework for future contributors to build from.

I was the first dedicated content resource on both products. Rather than being embedded in a single feature team, my mandate was broader: assess what existed, define what was missing, and build the content layer that would enable everything else.

My Approach

In a short engagement with no existing playbook, I prioritized impact over volume. I started with a full content audit — mapping the current state of language across both products to surface the biggest gaps and inconsistencies. That audit directly shaped a comprehensive style guide built specifically for AI-forward products, covering:

Voice & tone

Guidelines for how the product speaks — and how it shifts in different moments

AI content patterns

Specific rules for AI-generated responses, prompts, and uncertainty states

Terminology glossary

Canonical terms across Accio and AI Mode — standardized for product and marketing

Component content rules

Button labels, error messages, empty states, loading states — with clear rationale

Alongside the infrastructure work, I wrote feature content for both Accio and AI Mode — producing copy, UX strings, and documentation intended to ship with new features as they were developed.

My Role

I started by reviewing the previous content strategy deck, a recent marketing audit, and conducting my own audit of the product to identify gaps. From there, I drove collaboration with marketing, conducted dozens of interviews, and secured buy-in from product and service teams. Once the new strategy was defined, I partnered with engineering to update content across emails, push notifications, landing pages, in-product messaging, and call scripts. I worked closely with my design partner to redesign the Live Bookkeeping page, rolling out the new roadmap design. Finally, I worked with bookkeeping managers to roll out the new approach through bookkeeper training.

The Impact

  • 15-minute drop in average call times from clearer UI terms, which boosted efficiency.

    • Shorter call times increased appointment availability and customer satisfaction with scheduling.

  • Marked increase in positive user sentiment as seen in randomized reviews of recorded calls, asynchronous user feedback, and follow-up user interviews.

  • Increased first-30-day document uploads by 5–10 documents per user on average through consistent, actionable navigation.

  • 20% increase in delivering Cleanup within 30 days as faster document submission streamlined workflows and reduced delays.