Alibaba’s Qwen App Advances Agentic AI Strategy by Turning Core Ecosystem Services into Executable AI Capabilities

Qwen App translates Alibaba’s foundational AI capabilities into real-world task execution—automating everyday activities across commerce, travel, payment, and productivity within a single interface

Alibaba today announced a major upgrade to its flagship consumer-facing AI application, Qwen App, marking a further step in the company’s long-term strategy to bring advanced AI capabilities into practical, everyday use.

This shift from “AI that responds” to “AI that acts” is enabled by Qwen App’s deep integration of core services from Alibaba’s ecosystem, including Taobao, Taobao Instant Commerce, Alipay, Fliggy, and Amap. Qwen App intelligently coordinates services across multiple platforms through a unified AI interface, allowing users to move seamlessly from intent to completion.

These new features are now available for public testing in China.

With the latest upgrade, Qwen App is moving beyond conversational interaction to become a system capable of autonomously completing end-to-end actions.

Through a single voice or text request, users can now order food, complete in-chat payments, plan and book travel, call restaurants, and manage multi-step tasks—without switching between applications or manually navigating workflows.

“AI is evolving from intelligence to agency,” said Wu Jia, Vice President of Alibaba Group. “What we are launching today represents a shift from models that understand to systems that act—deeply connected to real-world services. Qwen App is Alibaba’s approach to the next era of AI applications: not just powerful, but genuinely useful in everyday life. By making these capabilities freely available, we aim to help users offload repetitive tasks to an intelligent assistant they can rely on.”

The initial set of agentic capabilities focuses on scenarios where users already have established habits and expectations, such as local services, shopping and travel.

In quick commerce, Qwen App can place real-time food and beverage orders through Taobao Instant Commerce, with available promotions automatically applied and payment completed directly within the conversation.

In travel planning, Qwen App can design itineraries, compare options and complete bookings for flights, hotels and attractions through Fliggy, while Amap provides routing and navigation support.

In shopping scenarios, Qwen App enables conversational product discovery, starting with select product categories during this initial testing phase, and handling vague or complex requests by drawing on Taobao’s product data and consumer reviews. Users can review recommendations within the Qwen App and continue to Taobao to complete purchases if they choose.

At the product launch event, Wu Jia conducted a live demonstration by asking Qwen App to order 40 cups of bubble tea from a local chain store. The app placed the order through Taobao Instant Commerce, applied discounts and completed the payment in-chat, with delivery of the order arriving shortly afterward.

For the first time, Qwen App introduced native AI payment through direct integration with Alipay. After explicit user confirmation, transactions can be completed without leaving the conversation. AI payment currently supports Taobao Instant Commerce and will be expanded to additional services over time.

Beyond commerce, Qwen App also provides guided access to selected public services via Alipay, including passport renewals, household registration updates, and access to social benefits. With user authorization, the app offers structured guidance and links to official service channels, reducing friction in traditionally complex administrative processes.

Qwen App also debuted a new “Task Assistant” feature, currently available in invite-only beta. Built on Qwen’s advanced models, a tiered multi-agent architecture and Alibaba’s ecosystem intelligence, the Task Assistant is designed to complete complex personal and professional workflows in minutes,

Demonstrated capabilities of the Task Assistant feature include:

Making real phone calls to restaurants, confirming requests like child seats and generating full call transcripts
Planning multi-stop travel itineraries with intelligent comparison and booking
Processing up to 100 documents simultaneously to extract data and generate structured reports
Conducting brand sentiment or competitive research
Building and deploying lightweight web applications such as interactive tools or digital invitations

These capabilities illustrate how Alibaba is extending agentic AI beyond consumer convenience to broader productivity and professional use cases.

Since its public beta launch on November 17, Qwen App has seen strong user adoption and surpassed 100 million monthly active users within two months of its release.

Powered by Alibaba’s most advanced Qwen3 foundation model, Qwen App represents an important milestone in the company’s AI strategy: turning proprietary model leadership into scalable, real-world applications that sit directly on top of Alibaba’s commerce, services and payments infrastructure. Alibaba plans to continue expanding Qwen App’s capabilities in a phased manner, with a focus on reliability, user trust and real-world usefulness.

This article was originally published on Alizila written by Gabbie Fu.

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Alibaba’s Qwen App Advances Agentic AI Strategy by Turning Core Ecosystem Services into Executable AI Capabilities

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