Alibaba Group has been named to _Fortune_'s 2026 Change the World list for expanding AI access for the underserved consumers and SMEs, marking its eighth appearance on the list. The recognition reflects the company’s long-standing approach to building technology around practical problems. For Alibaba, AI is not a competitive race; it is a responsibility.
_Fortune_’s Change the World list recognizes companies that address social challenges through their core business strategies. For Alibaba, its appearance on the list reflects the belief that the most durable technology is the one that works for people.
Alibaba is joining other global leading companies such as Alphabet, Coursera, Canva, Eli Lilly and Walmart. The publication noted that “these companies use the creative forces of capitalism to solve big problems—and do well by doing good.”
“Alibaba has long served small businesses, including rural sellers, by providing commerce infrastructure and services…… It also serves elderly and rural shoppers with its Qwen family of Al models, which have hit 3 billion in downloads and offer dialect-tuned voice recognition. Meanwhile, Accio Work agentic platform allows global small and medium-size enterprises to automate complex workflow, track performance, and update product listings through natural language commands,” said _Fortune_.
Alibaba’s entry highlights how AI can be applied to practical challenges in education and business. The Qwen App’s free university application-guidance agent was used by 40 million students and parents within two weeks of the release of exam results, generating more than 23 million application-strategy reports.
The Qwen App’s free university application-guidance agent
AI tools available on Taobao and Tmall saved five million merchants hundreds of billions of RMB in operating costs in 2025. During a mid-year sales event, Dianxiaomi, an AI customer-service agent, handled more than 70% of inquiries for Decathlon’s Tmall store, cutting average response time from 45 seconds to 12 seconds.
Alibaba is also applying AI to healthcare, road safety and cultural preservation. DAMO Academy’s screening models now covers pancreatic, gastric, colorectal and liver cancers. Its colorectal cancer-detection model, COCA, was validated across 27,433 patients, achieving 86.6% sensitivity and a 0.2% false-positive rate.
The Amap-powered Eagle Eye system has issued more than 62.9 billion real-time road-hazard warnings since launch. In one expressway incident, it identified a multi-vehicle accident within 16 seconds and alerted 437 approaching vehicles. Meanwhile, “Ancient Murals Reborn” uses AI to digitally preserve fragile historic artworks, including a fading Five Dynasties-era mural at Dayun Temple in China’s Shanxi Province.
When AI creates genuine value for people, commercial success follows. This approach is reflected in the business adoption of Alibaba’s AI services. AI Cloud and Compute Services revenue grew 45% year-over-year in the June quarter, its strongest growth in 22 quarters. Annualized AI-related product revenue reached $7.3 billion and is projected to reach $10 billion in the September quarter.
To read _Fortune_’s full profile of Alibaba, click here.
This article was originally published on Alizila written by Jing Wang and Sovanna Fung.
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