Alibaba ramps Qwen in‑chat commerce for Lunar New Year amid Baidu competition, regulatory risk

Holiday surge fuels Alibaba’s in‑chat commerce push

Alibaba Group Holding is intensifying efforts to turn its Qwen chatbot into a core commerce engine during the Lunar New Year period, betting on in‑chat shopping to lock in users and transactions. The company is integrating Qwen across e‑commerce platforms including Taobao and travel site Fliggy, enabling buyers to compare products and complete checkout inside the chat interface using Alipay. Alibaba is backing the push with heavy marketing and infrastructure investment, saying it is spending about CNY3 billion to drive trials of Qwen during the holiday window.

The move is producing measurable consumer activity, with Alibaba reporting more than 120 million consumer orders routed through its app in the six days through Feb. 11, according to company statements. Executives describe the integration as a way to reduce friction by cutting app switching, increase engagement and gather data to improve personalization and ad targeting across Alibaba’s ecosystem. The company also acknowledges technical strain, saying it has “urgently added resources” after outages as demand spikes, underscoring the operational challenges of scaling agentive AI for commerce.

Alibaba frames the Qwen rollout as both a user experience and monetization strategy: by embedding AI that can handle product discovery, comparisons and checkout, the firm seeks to keep transactions within its platforms and expand revenue opportunities beyond traditional listings and ads. Analysts warn the aggressive spending and promotional giveaways during the holiday are aimed at rapid user acquisition and developer engagement, with the company hoping to translate short‑term traction into longer‑term ecosystem lock‑in and third‑party services built on Qwen capabilities.

Baidu integration sharpens competition

Rival Baidu is racing to embed agentive AI into mainstream apps too, giving users of its smartphone search app access to the open‑sourced AI agent OpenClaw and extending agent capabilities across its e‑commerce and cloud services. The move, which leverages Baidu’s roughly 700 million monthly active users, intensifies competition over who controls AI‑driven workflows and commerce inside daily apps.

Regulatory flashpoint underscores geopolitical risk

Separately, a brief and unexplained U.S. Pentagon listing that included Alibaba on a list of firms allegedly linked to China’s military — later withdrawn within minutes — highlights growing policy uncertainty that could complicate Alibaba’s international operations. The episode underscores how geopolitical and regulatory shifts remain a potential headwind as Chinese tech giants race to commercialize AI.