Alibaba today fully connected its Qwen App to Taobao’s entire product catalog and launched a Qwen-powered shopping assistant inside the Taobao app. Users in China can now browse, compare, place orders, and manage deliveries through natural conversation rather than keyword search.
The launch marks a significant upgrade from earlier this year, when Qwen app’s commerce features covered only a handful of trial categories. The full integration gives the Qwen app access to the entire Taobao and Tmall catalog of over 4 billion products, backed by AI agents equipped with a skills library covering order management, logistics, and after-sales service.
The capability rests on Alibaba’s Qwen foundation model, refined on more than two decades of the company’s own transaction data and merchant operations. By contrast, most global AI platforms rely on external plug-ins for commerce, building user trust and personalization from scratch.
Qwen app’s shopping journey shifts the starting point of a purchase from a search bar to an open-ended question. A user celebrating a first paycheck can ask what gift to buy; Qwen asks follow-up questions about budget and style, then surfaces options before completing the transaction in the chat window. Someone redecorating a small apartment can ask how to make the space feel larger; Qwen returns a curated product bundle with practical styling notes.
Qwen app also draws on a user’s order history to suggest preference-aligned recommendations. With contextualized AI, the app also helps shoppers discover latent needs during their daily conversations.
Alibaba plans to extend this to proactive nudges, such as alerting users when a regularly ordered item is running low before they think to search for it.
As Alibaba’s flagship consumer AI application, Qwen app has gained traction in China on the strength of its task‑completion capabilities. The full Taobao integration makes Qwen app a stronger tool for everyday shopping decisions.
Inside the Taobao App, users access the new “Qwen Shopping Assistant” through the messages tab.
Trained on Taobao’s full product catalog and billions of customer reviews, the new assistant fields questions across a wide range of shopping needs — whether it is finding the right camping gear for young children or an electric toothbrush that is safe for sensitive gums — and delivers side-by-side comparisons alongside recommendations.
The functionalities of the Qwen Shopping Assistant on the Taobao app
A standout feature is the AI Virtual Try-On, which uses Alibaba’s multimodal model to simulate how a garment looks on a user’s photo, capturing fabric texture and drape. Users can mix and match outfits and receive trend-based styling suggestions. The feature will extend to footwear and accessories, soon, and will roll out on the Qwen app in the near future.
On savings, the assistant aggregates platform discounts during shopping festivals such as the upcoming 618 campaign and recommends the most advantageous coupon combinations at checkout. A 30-day price tracker lets users set a target price for an item from a preferred seller; once that threshold is met, the assistant automatically places the order.
Alibaba is also upgrading its customer-service AI for merchants Dianxiaomi by investing trillions of tokens into the platform. The aim is to help merchants replace scripted chatbot responses with AI agents capable of handling complex conversations and closing sales.
With Qwen app embedded across Taobao’s commerce stack, Alibaba has positioned its AI as both the interface and executor of consumer transactions. It is pairing the conversational reach of a general AI assistant with the transactional depth of one of the world’s largest e-commerce platforms.
This article was originally published on Alizila written by Alizila Staff
1,398 posts | 492 followers
FollowAlibaba Cloud Community - January 15, 2026
Alibaba Cloud Community - February 12, 2026
CloudSecurity - April 9, 2026
CloudSecurity - April 30, 2026
Alibaba Cloud Community - March 20, 2026
Alibaba Cloud Community - February 5, 2026
1,398 posts | 492 followers
Follow
Container Compute Service (ACS)
A cloud computing service that provides container compute resources that comply with the container specifications of Kubernetes
Learn More
Container Service for Kubernetes
Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes is a fully managed cloud container management service that supports native Kubernetes and integrates with other Alibaba Cloud products.
Learn More
Livestreaming for E-Commerce Solution
Set up an all-in-one live shopping platform quickly and simply and bring the in-person shopping experience to online audiences through a fast and reliable global network
Learn More
E-Commerce Solution
Alibaba Cloud e-commerce solutions offer a suite of cloud computing and big data services.
Learn MoreMore Posts by Alibaba Cloud Community
