Alibaba launches AI chatbot service; rebuilds user approach
Alibaba launches AI chatbot service; rebuilds user approach
Until now, the space has been dominated by ByteDance and Tencent
Chinese e-commerce firm, Alibaba, has launched a new AI chatbot assistant service, enhancing its presence in a consumer-facing field.
The company integrated the chat assistant into its Quark app, which began as a browser but, in 2025, repositioned as its flagship consumer application, adding artificial intelligence (AI) functions, including search capabilities.
The new, free-to-use service allows people to access a chatbot interface for conversations via text or voice, providing real-time information and services. Until now, the space has been dominated by ByteDance and Tencent.
Alibaba's AI efforts have focused on enterprise clients through its cloud services division. The new service will capture the market where it struggled to gain traction with its Tongyi AI assistant app. Despite being among the first Chinese companies to release a consumer AI assistant app in late 2023, Tongyi failed to achieve widespread acceptance.
According to AI product tracker Aicpb.cohe app, in September, it had 6.96 million monthly active users. While market leader ByteDance's Doubao had 150 million monthly active users, DeepSeek had 73.4 million and Tencent followed with 64.2 million.
Worldwide, AI assistants have gained traction for companies, including Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, who have embedded them into their Gemini, Copilot and ChatGPT platforms.
Alibaba stated that powered by its latest Qwen3 models, Quark's AI chat assistant offers enhanced reasoning, understanding, and execution capabilities.
The company maintained that the pre-sales for its Quark AI Glasses would begin at midnight on Friday on its Tmall e-commerce platform. The orders would be fulfilled from December, with the glasses priced at 4,699 yuan ($659.69).
The smart classes were unveiled by Alibaba in July. It joined companies like Meta Platforms for wearable AI devices.
