By Tracy Qu
Alibaba Group is rolling out a major update of its Qwen app, integrating the chatbot into its ecosystem and allowing it to carry out tasks on users' behalf.
With the update, users can ask Qwen to perform actions such as ordering milk tea and booking flights, rather than navigating different apps by themselves. Alibaba has connected the Qwen app to the company's core ecosystem, including e-commerce platform Taobao and online travel agency Fliggy. This means users can complete transactions entirely within Qwen without navigating to other Alibaba apps, though this functionality is only supported for food-delivery transactions for now.
"What we are launching today represents a shift from models that understand to systems that act--deeply connected to real-world services," said Wu Jia, a vice president at Alibaba, during at a launch event in Hangzhou, China, on Thursday.
The Qwen app also debuted a new "task assistant" feature, currently available for invited users. The assistant can help users to make phone calls, or process up to 100 documents simultaneously.
The rollout reflects Alibaba's broader push to turn Qwen from a standalone chatbot to an entry point for its consumer internet ecosystem, as large technology companies race to develop AI systems that can move beyond answering questions to executing real-world tasks across multiple services.
The move comes amid a global push to make AI systems more agent-like. In October, OpenAI integrated a number of apps that users can interact with inside the chatbot, such as music-streaming app Spotify and travel agency Booking.com.
Launched in November, the Qwen app has surpassed 100 million monthly active users within two months of its release.
Write to Tracy Qu at tracy.qu@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-14-26 2149ET
