In Alibaba’s bid to maintain its existing ecommerce dominance and capture opportunities in AI, the company has introduced a host of agentic commerce tools for its enterprise clients, merchants, and consumers.

China’s tech giants are locked in a heated AI battle

Subsidies are turning AI from novelty into habitual interface. During this year’s February Lunar New Year, Alibaba committed roughly RMB 3 billion ($416.28 million) to promote its genAI chatbot Qwen (also known as Tongyi Qianwen) through cash rewards, vouchers, and discounts. Besides attracting new users, the campaign aimed to shift behavior toward real-world tasks like planning itineraries, booking tickets, ordering food, and making payments.

Alibaba, with its comprehensive ecosystem, has an advantage. Its apps already hold users’ payment details, travel documents, and location data, which allows Qwen to execute tasks with a single tap. But while growing fast, Qwen still trails rivals from ByteDance, DeepSeek, and Tencent in daily active users as of December 2025.