- Organizational reshuffle pairs DingTalk with AI unit Wukong under a dual-engine strategy
- Move follows leadership change amid scrutiny of workplace culture
Just a week after taking over as chief executive of Alibaba’s workplace collaboration platform DingTalk, Chen Yusen (陈宇森) has unveiled a sweeping organizational overhaul and an AI-focused roadmap that offers the clearest indication yet of his plans for the business.
In his first company-wide memo, signed as “Yusen, CEO of the Wukong Business Unit,” Chen outlined five major organizational changes while positioning DingTalk and Wukong as twin growth engines for Alibaba’s enterprise software ambitions.
Wukong is DingTalk’s AI-focused business unit, released in March 2026 to complement the workplace collaboration platform with agentic AI capabilities.
Crisis over toxic work culture
The restructuring comes days after Alibaba’s partnership committee slammed DingTalk’s management practices on June 10, particularly concerns over excessive pressure on employees.
DingTalk founder Chen Hang stepped down the following day, with Chen Yusen taking over the role.
For the young executive, 33, who rose through Alibaba’s technical ranks, rebuilding organizational culture while steering the company through an AI transition will be among his most immediate challenges.
Five-part organizational reshuffle
According to the memo, DingTalk will establish a core platform business unit, and consolidate the Wukong and MuleRun teams into a new Wukong organization.
Other planned moves include merging six sales and service functions into a customer development department, creating a standalone marketing division, and forming a new internal IT department.
The newly created IT team will be tasked with transforming the company’s business systems into infrastructure that can be more easily accessed and operated by AI agents.
Chen said the goal is to “fully transform existing businesses with AI” and turn them into “agent-friendly infrastructure.”
Proven monetization track record
The dual-engine strategy signals that DingTalk’s traditional workplace collaboration platform and Wukong’s AI-native capabilities will develop in parallel.
One of the most significant changes is the integration of MuleRun, an AI agent platform, into the Wukong team.
MuleRun was originally incubated within Alibaba Cloud under Chen’s leadership and entered commercial operations in mid-May.
According to the memo, the product has already surpassed 300 million yuan ($44 million) in annual recurring revenue within a month of commercialization.
This milestone highlights strong enterprise demand for AI agent tools and providing Wukong with an established business foundation.
From ‘people-led’ to ‘agent-driven’
The creation of the IT department also points to a broader shift in strategy.
Rather than simply offering collaboration tools for employees, DingTalk is repositioning itself as a platform that AI agents can directly use to access communications, approvals and workflow systems.
If successful, the transition could fundamentally change how enterprises interact with the software, moving from a model where people use DingTalk to work toward one where AI agents use DingTalk on behalf of workers.
