- Alipay, digital payments and Sesame Credit will be brought under one new unit
- The move comes as Ant steps up its push to use AI agents across payments and daily services
Ant Group has created a new Alipay business group by merging its Alipay, digital payments and Sesame Credit businesses, as the fintech giant steps up its push into AI-powered commerce.
Ant CEO Han Xinyi (韩歆毅) announced the restructuring and executive appointments in an internal letter on September 21.
Wu Minzhi (吴敏芝) has been named president of the new Alipay business group while continuing as Ant’s chief product officer.
Wu joined Ant in 2021 after more than 20 years at Alibaba, where she held senior roles including president of its international trade and B2B businesses and chief customer officer.
Driving ‘agentic commerce’
Han said the rapid spread of AI is driving the growth of “agentic commerce,” in which AI agents can carry out tasks for users and interact with businesses.
Alipay has spent the past three years developing AI payments, tools to build trust between AI agents, an AI wallet, its Abao personal assistant, “Tap offline payments and services across multiple devices.
The new unit will bring these technologies, products and ecosystems together and strengthen services for merchants, Han said.
The goal is for every user to have an AI wallet and personal assistant, while merchants can use Alipay’s AI platform to serve customers through AI agents.
Ant rolls out QwenWork
The restructuring comes four days after Ant adopted Alibaba’s QwenWork as its AI workplace platform for all employees.
The system runs on Ant’s private network and supports Ant’s own AI models. Ant said the setup keeps company data within its network and allows activity logs to be audited.
QwenWork will connect with internal tools and services, including digital employees, Ant Ding and project-management systems.
The rollout gives Ant a companywide AI platform as it reorganizes Alipay around AI-driven services.
A new role for payments
The move reflects a broader shift among Chinese tech companies from simply adding AI tools to reorganizing businesses around them.
For Alipay, the strategy goes beyond building an AI chatbot. By combining an AI wallet and personal assistant with its existing payment network and merchant base, the company is positioning payments as part of the infrastructure that AI agents could use to make purchases and complete tasks.
That could give payment platforms a new role in the AI economy: not just processing transactions, but helping users and businesses trust and complete transactions initiated by AI.
Header image caption: Ant Group CEO Han Xinyi speaks at an event in 2026. Image credit: Ant Group official WeChat
