Alibaba launches new AI chatbot service in bid to compete with ByteDance and Tencent

Key takeaways

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba launched a new artificial intelligence chatbot service on Thursday, marking its latest attempt to capture consumer market share in a space dominated by domestic rivals ByteDance and Tencent.

Quark app becomes an AI battleground

The company integrated the chat assistant into its Quark app, a platform that originally launched as a browser but has been repositioned this year as Alibaba's flagship consumer application.

The free service allows users to access a chatbot interface for conversations via text or voice, providing real-time information and services, according to a company statement.

The new chatbot is powered by Alibaba's latest Qwen3 models, which the company says offer enhanced reasoning, understanding, and execution capabilities.

The move represents a strategic shift for Alibaba, whose AI efforts have mainly focused on enterprise clients through its cloud services division.

Struggling to gain consumer traction

The launch comes as Alibaba attempts to overcome significant challenges in the consumer AI market.

Despite being among the first Chinese companies to release a consumer AI assistant app to the public in late 2023, the company's Tongyi AI assistant has failed to achieve widespread adoption.

According to AI product tracker Aicpb.com, Tongyi had just 6.96 million monthly active users in September.

This pales in comparison to market leader ByteDance's Doubao, which boasted 150 million monthly active users. DeepSeek followed with 73.4 million users, while Tencent's offering had 64.2 million.

Smart glasses pre-sales announced

Separately on Thursday, Alibaba announced that pre-sales for its Quark AI Glasses would begin at midnight on Friday on its Tmall e-commerce platform.

The company said it would begin fulfilling orders progressively from December, with the glasses priced at 4,699 yuan ($659.69).

Alibaba unveiled its smart glasses in July, joining companies like Meta Platforms in the market for wearable AI devices.

Global AI assistant race intensifies

The consumer AI assistant market has become increasingly competitive globally. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI have embedded AI assistants into their Gemini, Copilot, and ChatGPT platforms, gaining significant traction with users worldwide.

China's tech giants are now racing to turn AI technology into actual products that resonate with consumers.

The South China Morning Post reported that Alibaba has separated its AI chatbot development team from its large language model research division to better serve the consumer-facing market.

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