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E-commerce and Artificial Intelligence: Direct Investment, New Productive Infrastructures, and Labour Reconfigurations

  • Project is co-led by Dr Tomaz M. Fares in partnership with Jörg Nowak and Ricardo Festi, from the University of Brasilia
  • Funded by Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development
  • Project dates: September 2025 - August 2027

This project analyses the global value chains of major e-commerce corporations and their impacts on Brazil as a representative case of the Global South, focusing on how the transfer and application of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies reshape production, labour, and market structures. It examines whether such technological transfers foster productivity and inclusion or instead reinforce precarious work, capital concentration, and market monopolisation. The study focuses on three key firms—Shein, Amazon, and the 2024 joint venture between Magalu and AliExpress—each embodying distinct technological and organisational strategies.

The project explores how e-commerce platforms deploy AI in product design, recommendation systems, and logistics to consolidate influence across diffuse domains of economic and social power. By situating these developments within the broader context of techno-nationalism and state platform capitalism, the research highlights how US and Chinese corporate strategies intersect and compete in Brazil’s digital economy, transforming the international division of labour and revealing the geopolitical dimensions of technological interdependence in the contemporary global economy.