NANJING, CHINA – NOVEMBER 25: Aerial view of Alibaba Jiangsu Headquarters at night on November 25, 2025 in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province of China. (Photo by Fang Dongxu\/VCG via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images<\/p>\n
China’s technology giants are entering a new phase of the artificial intelligence race called ‘agentic commerce,’ as firms such as Alibaba and ByteDance race to turn chatbots into full-service shopping and payment tools.<\/p>\n
Alibaba last week updated its Qwen AI chatbot<\/a>, allowing users to complete transactions directly within the interface, including ordering food and booking air tickets.<\/p>\n The upgrade connects Qwen to Alibaba’s broader e-commerce ecosystem, allowing users to compare tailored product recommendations from platforms such as Taobao or its travel site Fliggy, before finally completing payments through Alipay, all without leaving the chatbot.<\/p>\n Previously, Qwen\u00a0could\u00a0make recommendations based on user-generated prompts, but users still had to manually navigate multiple platforms to make purchases.<\/p>\n The update reflects a broader shift among some global artificial intelligence firms from a focus on foundational AI models to “agentic AI”, which performs tasks on behalf of users with limited supervision.<\/p>\n “The agentic transformation of commercial services enables the maximal integration of user services [and] enhances user stickiness,” Shaochen Wang, a research analyst at Counterpoint Research, referring to stronger long-term user engagement.<\/p>\n That allows companies to build a sustainable competitive advantage, often called a business moat, which helps protect profits from competitors, he added.<\/p>\n While commercial applications for agentic AI are expected to range from autonomous driving to cybersecurity, e-commerce is emerging as one of its earliest and most pervasive use cases, with payment and tech giants in the U.S. also rolling out their first iterations<\/a> in recent months.<\/p>\n Within China, Alibaba is well-positioned to be a pioneer in agentic commerce\u00a0due to its\u00a0advanced large language model capabilities and\u00a0its\u00a0extensive e-commerce network covering clothing, food, housing, and transportation, Wang said.<\/p>\n Growing global competition<\/p>\n Alibaba’s strategy could help it compete with rival super apps such as Tencent’s WeChat \u2014 widely regarded as China’s leading ‘super app’ \u2014 which combines messaging, payments, e-commerce and other services into a single platform used by over 1 billion users.<\/p>\n Other Chinese firms are also moving quickly. <\/p>\n ByteDance in December upgraded its popular Doubao AI chatbot to autonomously handle tasks such as ticket bookings through integrations with e-commerce features on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.<\/p>\n The upgraded Doubao model was introduced on a prototype smartphone developed by ZTE Corp as a comprehensive AI assistant<\/a> capable of performing tasks across a user’s mobile device. However, some of Doubao’s planned features<\/a> were later scaled back<\/a> after rivals raised privacy and security concerns.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Tencent President Martin Lau said during the company’s May 2025 earnings call<\/a> that AI agents could become core components of the WeChat ecosystem.\u00a0<\/p>\n “AI agents will be foundational to the evolution of super apps, with success depending on deep integration across payments, logistics, and social engagement,” Charlie Dai, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, told CNBC.<\/p>\n While Chinese firms like Alibaba<\/a>, Tencent<\/a> and ByteDance will compete to embed agents across their platforms, they all benefit from integrated ecosystems, rich behavioral data, and consumer familiarity with super apps, said Dai.<\/p>\n Western companies, while leading in foundational AI models and global reach, face more fragmented data and stricter privacy regulations, slowing cross-service integration, he added.<\/p>\n U.S. players pursuing agentic commerce include OpenAI, Perplexity, and Amazon<\/a>. Google<\/a> is also exploring ways to position itself as a “matchmaker<\/a>” between merchants, consumers and AI agents.<\/p>\n “China will prioritize domestic integration and strategic expansion in selected regions, while U.S. firms focus on global scalability and governance,” Dai noted.<\/p>\n