- A Hangzhou pilot is turning retirees from AI users into makers of shareable digital skills
- The program reflects a broader shift as AI agents lower the barrier to creating useful tools
Alibaba’s Qwen is teaching senior citizens in Hangzhou how to use AI — and increasingly, how to create with it.
QwenWork, Alibaba’s AI productivity platform, recently published an AI guide for seniors that breaks common tasks into step-by-step examples, from downloading the app and using voice input to creating posters and personal webpages.
The guide uses plain language and larger type to make the instructions easier to follow.
On September 16, the guide was used in the first AI class at the senior university of Hangzhou’s Shangcheng Community College.
In China, a senior university is essentially a continuing-education institution for older adults, offering courses such as art, music, languages, fitness, technology and increasingly AI.
One 68-year-old student surnamed Zhou said she used QwenWork to sort decades of old photos the same evening she received the guide, local news portal tidenews reported on September 17.
Aging gracefully with AI?
The class is part of “AI for Aging,” a public-interest program launched by Alibaba and Zhejiang Open University, a community-based senior education program offering courses for older adults.
Students use tokens as the input for training and create AI-powered “skills” that can be uploaded to a shared marketplace for others to install and use.
“Last year, we could only teach them to use AI products made by others. Now we can teach them to make their own AI products,” said Jiang Lifei (江立飞), deputy director of lifelong education at Zhejiang Open University.
QwenWork has surpassed 30 million users within a month of its launch on July 27, according to the company.
From users to creators
The shift is enabled partly by the rapid maturation of AI agents, which has lowered the technical barrier to building simple AI-powered tools. Some students can even create skills through voice commands.
For retirees who spent decades working as engineers, teachers or in other professions, the model offers a way to turn accumulated knowledge and experience into reusable digital tools.
A different model for senior AI education
Technology companies around the world have largely treated older people as consumers who need more accessible products.
The Hangzhou experiment takes a different approach, positioning seniors as AI users, creators and contributors.
A March 2026 Fudan-Tencent report found that more than half of 237 respondents across 13 provinces and cities saw AI learning as a way to build skills, create economic value or re-engage with society.
The experiment suggests that AI education for older people may be about more than helping them keep up with technology. It could also give them a new way to put decades of experience to work.
Header image credit: Zhejiang Open University
