- Brands including Luckin Coffee and China Eastern begin testing services
- Company bets on agent ecosystem to expand Qwen’s role as a personal assistant
Alibaba Group said on June 3 that its Qwen app will be fully opened to third-party AI agents and skills, allowing businesses to operate branded agents within the platform as competition intensifies to build consumer-facing AI ecosystems.
The move will enable companies to create customized agents inside Qwen, defining their own service scope and interactions while offering products and services through natural-language conversations.
Prior to the broader rollout, Qwen had already provided AI-powered travel services for more than 100 airlines, hotels and other travel providers, covering flight bookings, seat selection, check-in, hotel reservations and after-sales support.
In the latest upgrade, the platform has expanded its agent capabilities to allow businesses to launch and operate their own branded AI agents.
Branded agents
Alibaba said the first batch of participating companies, including Luckin Coffee, KFC, Mixue Bingcheng and China Eastern Airlines, are currently testing agent-based services and will gradually roll them out to users.
The company said enterprise agents will have memory and planning capabilities, enabling them to proactively offer services such as travel reminders, membership renewal notifications and product repurchase suggestions.
Alibaba is positioning Qwen as a “super agent” capable of coordinating services across multiple providers.
Users will be able to complete a variety of tasks through a single conversational interface using natural-language requests.
For example, a China Eastern agent could recommend itineraries based on a user’s travel plans and preferences, while a Luckin Coffee agent could alert customers to anticipated lunchtime queues and suggest ordering ahead.
Embedded across Alibaba ecosystem
Over the past six months, Qwen has integrated into dozens of Alibaba ecosystem agents spanning travel, mapping, ride-hailing, shopping and instant retail services.
Alibaba said the app now handles more than 100 million service-related conversations a day, helping it build capabilities in user-intent understanding, service matching and proactive task planning.
