Alibaba Group Holding's domestic online marketplaces, Taobao and Tmall, plan to greatly expand artificial intelligence across merchant operations in 2027, Tmall president Liu Bo said. Liu said at the company's Singles' Day media briefing on Thursday that AI would comprehensively enter merchants' internal enterprise workflows starting next year. Alibaba is increasing its use of the technology to drive growth amid a challenging consumer landscape.
Liu said Qwen Work, Alibaba's enterprise AI assistant, would be an important product supporting the expansion. The e-commerce version of Qwen Work began testing earlier this week and is designed for merchants selling across multiple platforms. Liu said the rollout of AI on Taobao and Tmall over the past year had exceeded expectations. Liu said merchants were already using platform-level AI tools for product launches, advertising and customer service.
Official sales for Alibaba's annual Singles' Day shopping festival are set to begin next Tuesday. A record 1 million global brands are expected to participate. Alibaba launched the event in 2009 and is using this year's festival to test AI-driven growth. Alibaba has aggressively introduced AI-powered tools for consumers and merchants amid intense competition from rivals including JD.com and PDD Holdings.
Alibaba said this year's festival would feature deeper integration of the company's flagship Qwen AI model across its e-commerce ecosystem. A Qwen-powered shopping assistant launched in May is designed to help consumers compare products, virtually try on clothes and select promotional discounts. Liu said young, active Taobao and Tmall users currently buy goods from an average of 15 product categories annually. Liu said the platforms aim to increase that figure to between 25 and 30 categories by using AI to connect shoppers with more products. Liu said AI can match the wide supply of goods with diverse consumer demands in ways traditional algorithms could not achieve.
Alibaba is introducing "AI tokens" as a new product category on its platforms. Alibaba is partnering with major AI model developers in China, including Z.ai and MiniMax, to sell computing power directly to end users. Liu said the tokens would be packaged into customised bundles for groups such as students, researchers and small teams. Tmall is also partnering with hardware companies including Intel and Advanced Micro Devices to sell personal computers with Qwen models pre-installed.
Alibaba first deployed generative AI at large scale across Taobao and Tmall during Singles' Day in 2025. Alibaba integrated large language models into the platforms' core search and recommendation engines during that event. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Alibaba to Expand AI Across Taobao and Tmall Merchant Operations by 2027
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Summary
Alibaba plans to expand AI across Taobao and Tmall merchant operations by 2027, as part of ecosystem growth efforts. Tmall president Liu Bo announced the move during a Singles' Day briefing, highlighting Qwen Work’s role in supporting sellers. AI tools are already used for product launches, ads, and customer service. Alibaba is also introducing AI tokens, a new category in AI + crypto news, partnering with developers and hardware firms to offer computing power and pre-installed Qwen models.
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