- Holiday travel demand accelerates adoption as users test conversational booking
- Alibaba pushes deeper into AI-powered services beyond chat and search
Alibaba Group’s AI assistant Qwen is rapidly gaining traction in mobility services, with ride-hailing orders during the Qingming Festival holiday jumping more than 15-fold from a week earlier — less than two weeks after the feature went live.
The traditional Tomb-Sweeping Festival (Qingming), which falls on April 5, has been extended into a three-day public holiday running through April 6 this year.
The spike underscores how quickly Chinese consumers are adapting to AI agents capable of completing real-world tasks, as tech giants race to embed large language models into everyday services ranging from shopping to travel and transportation.
The AI ride-hailing function, launched on March 23, allows users to request rides through natural conversation rather than navigating multiple booking screens.
Users can describe complex travel needs in a single sentence — specifying vehicle type, destination, pickup time and even multiple interim stops — which the system automatically interprets and executes.
“We didn’t expect so many users to flood in so quickly,” the product’s lead said, reflecting the unexpectedly rapid uptake.
Unlike traditional ride-hailing apps that require step-by-step inputs, Qwen’s system parses ambiguous or flexible oral instructions and converts them into structured booking requests.
The assistant can recognize route preferences, scheduled departures and temporary waypoints without additional manual configuration, significantly shortening the booking process.
According to Qwen, users are particularly inclined to test AI capabilities in complicated travel scenarios, such as combining reservations, multi-stop itineraries and personalized ride requirements — situations where conventional interfaces often become cumbersome.
