On the morning of January 15, 2026, Alibaba held a press conference in Yunqi Town, Hangzhou, which will go down in the history of AI. At the meeting, Alibaba officially announced that the monthly active users (MAU) of the C-end of the Tongyi Qianwen App (hereinafter referred to as "Qianwen") have officially exceeded 100 million today.
With this milestone figure, Alibaba announced that Qianwen has fully entered the "era of doing things". This means that AI models are undergoing a qualitative change from simple "chat conversations" to "action assistants" deeply involved in the physical world.
At the live demonstration session of the press conference, Wu Jia, Vice President of Alibaba Group and Head of the C-end Business Group of Qianwen, showcased Qianwen's latest tricks.
When Wu Jia said to her phone, 'Help me order a Manner white latte, deliver it to the press conference venue, and use the nearest coupon.'. ”The Qianwen App completed logical orchestration in just a few seconds:
1. Intention analysis: Accurately capture users' needs for brands, products, addresses, and discount strategies through the Qwen Omni full modal model.
2. Scenario collaboration: automatically call the Taobao flash purchase and Alipay interface to retrieve the store location and starting price in real time.
3. Closed loop execution: Automatically select coupons and jump directly to the payment confirmation interface.
Not just ordering coffee. Starting today, the Qianwen App has officially connected the entire ecological chain of Taobao, Tmall, Fliggy, Gaode, Ele.me, and others. Whether it's "booking the cheapest flight to Beijing next week" or "helping me find a Cantonese restaurant near the company that costs 200 yuan per family and has private rooms", AI can directly complete the entire process of program recommendation, screening, and ordering on the end.
2026 is widely regarded as the "first year of Agent explosion" in the industry, and Alibaba's confidence comes from its unique "model+ecosystem" dual engine model.
Full scenario executor: The press conference revealed that Qianwen not only continues to lead in basic model capabilities such as semantic understanding and code generation, but also achieves breakthroughs in "tool calling capabilities". Through the deep integration of full chain APIs, AI is no longer just a porter of information, but has become a "digital employee" with hands and feet.
End side lightweight acceleration: Thanks to the maturity of lightweight models such as Qwen3 Flash, Qianwen has reduced response time by 70% when handling high-frequency tasks such as food delivery and travel, and the user interaction experience has approached that of a native app.
In the era of AI 1.0, we taught big models to speak; In the era of AI 2.0, we need to teach big models how to do things. ”Wu Jia emphasized in his speech, "MAU surpassing 100 million is just the beginning, and Qianwen's goal is to become the 'all powerful operating system' of the AI era
To support this vision, Alibaba completed a critical organizational restructuring by the end of 2025. The newly established C-end business group of Qianwen integrates core strengths such as intelligent information and intelligent interconnection, encompassing Qianwen, Quark, UC, and AI hardware businesses.
This strategic adjustment signifies that Alibaba regards AI as the top priority in the 'battle of the future'. Against the backdrop of competitors such as Doubao and DeepSeek, Alibaba has chosen to use "deep closed-loop life services" as its core killer move, seizing the user's mind through practical capabilities.
Affected by today's press conference and news of monthly activity exceeding 100 million yuan, Alibaba's (HK9988) stock price performed strongly in early trading today. Market analysts believe that with Qianwen successfully entering the life service entrance, Alibaba's big model is showing strong commercial certainty.
Industry Review:
By 2026, AI agents are replacing traditional search and app architectures. Experts from the School of Artificial Intelligence at Nanjing University said, "This step by Tongyi Qianwen marks the official departure of China's big model competition from 'parameter competition' and the entry into a new stage of 'value realization'
Today's observation conclusion:
When AI can order food, book tickets, and handle complex schedules for you, it transforms from a "toy" to a "necessity". The "era of doing business" of Qianwen may be the first whistle of mobile Internet's transition to AI's original ecology.
