Alibaba's Qwen AI to handle 4 billion Taobao items in agentic commerce push

Alibaba is integrating its Qwen AI directly into the Taobao and Tmall marketplaces, a move that gives the agent end-to-end control over a 4-billion-item catalog and could reshape e-commerce by replacing keyword searches with conversational transactions.

The strategy is about moving “from intelligence to agency,” Wu Jia, Alibaba Group Vice President, said at a launch event for the new integration.

The Qwen app will access the entire Taobao and Tmall product selection, using a proprietary "skills library" to manage logistics, compare prices, and handle after-sales service, culminating in a transaction completed via Alipay. During the Chinese New Year campaign, nearly 140 million users experimented with initial versions of the AI shopping functions.

The integration is a direct response to mounting pressure from competitors like PDD Holdings and Douyin, representing a multi-billion dollar gamble that AI-native commerce can defend Alibaba's market share. The success of this $53 billion AI initiative hinges on whether users embrace a fully agentic checkout process, a metric global retailers will be watching closely.

A New E-Commerce Model

Alibaba’s design treats the entire purchase as a task the AI can complete autonomously, a sharp divergence from how Western platforms have approached generative AI. While Amazon’s Rufus assistant and Shopify’s integrations produce search-style answers, the final purchase flow remains a manual process for the user. In contrast, Qwen can take a verbal order, find the product, apply discounts, and complete the payment, stepping back only for the final user confirmation.

In a live demonstration, the company showcased Qwen taking a request for forty cups of bubble tea, placing the order on Taobao, applying loyalty discounts, and completing the checkout through Alipay. This end-to-end agency is what Alibaba is betting on to differentiate its user experience in a crowded market. By the end of February, Qwen had already reached 300 million monthly active users across Alibaba's ecosystem.

Competitive and Strategic Stakes

The move comes as Alibaba’s traditional e-commerce business loses ground to rivals like PDD Holdings, the parent of Pinduoduo and Temu, and ByteDance’s Douyin commerce. This competitive pressure is a key reason for the company's willingness to risk a significant shift in user interface. The integration also marks a strategic reversal from Alibaba's recent trend of splitting its business units, pulling its cloud and AI division closer to its core commerce arm to build a defensible moat.

The push into AI-driven checkout is not without risks. The company's relationship with Beijing remains under scrutiny following a 2021 antitrust fine, and any new system that centralizes user data and payment flows could attract regulatory attention. For now, Alibaba is betting that the potential rewards of owning the AI-native commerce layer outweigh the structural and regulatory complexities. The ultimate success will be measured not in technical capability, but in conversion rates, order values, and whether casual shoppers, not just early adopters, embrace the change.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.