Alibaba unveils Qwen3.5 AI chatbot for agentic era but faces crushing user demand
9 Sources
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Alibaba unveils new Qwen3.5 model for 'agentic AI era'
BEIJING, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Alibaba on Monday unveiled a new artificial intelligence model Qwen 3.5 designed to execute complex tasks independently, with big improvements in performance and cost that the Chinese tech giant claims beat major U.S. rival models on several benchmarks. The release
[2]
Alibaba's overloaded AI chatbot stops issuing coupons, asks shoppers for patience
BEIJING, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Alibaba's (9988.HK), opens new tab artificial intelligence chatbot Qwen has temporarily stopped issuing coupons due to customer overload, hampering a new campaign to promote the tool's capabilities beyond simply answering questions to assist shopping. Qwen began offering
[3]
Alibaba unveils new Qwen3.5 model for 'agentic AI era'
The release comes as Alibaba looks to attract more users to its Qwen chatbot app in China, a landscape currently dominated by rival tech giant ByteDance's Doubao and DeepSeek, which became the first Chinese AI firm to break through globally last year. Alibaba on Monday unveiled a new artificial
[4]
Alibaba's overloaded AI chatbot stops issuing coupons, asks shoppers for patience
Since last month, Alibaba has sought to make Qwen a one-stop shop where users can access its other apps directly in the chatbot and complete payments, much like Google integrates its Gemini chatbot into apps like Maps. However, the rollout of what the ecommerce giant calls the chatbot's agentic AI
[5]
Alibaba's Qwen Chatbot Halts Coupons Amid Customer Overload | PYMNTS.com
By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The issue with the Chinese tech giant's Qwen chatbot has marred the company's
[6]
Alibaba Releases New Flagship AI Model
China's Alibaba on Monday released its latest update to its flagship artificial-intelligence model, Qwen 3.5, joining a flurry of rollouts ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. The new model features enhanced reasoning and agentic capabilities, while handling images and videos better than its
[7]
Alibaba unveils new Qwen3.5 model for 'agentic AI era'
BEIJING, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Alibaba on Monday unveiled a new artificial intelligence model Qwen 3.5 designed to execute complex tasks independently, with big improvements in performance and cost that the Chinese tech giant claims beat major U.S. rival models on several benchmarks. The release
[8]
Alibaba Rakes in Orders as It Looks to Expand AI Beyond Bots
Alibaba Group is pushing its Qwen model beyond chatbot-style interactions, a move that underscores its ambition to turn its flagship artificial-intelligence product into a consumer-facing agent. The e-commerce giant's latest effort is a $434 million Lunar New Year promotion to get draw more
[9]
Alibaba's overloaded AI chatbot stops issuing coupons, asks shoppers for patience
BEIJING, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Alibaba's artificial intelligence chatbot Qwen has temporarily stopped issuing coupons due to customer overload, hampering a new campaign to promote the tool's capabilities beyond simply answering questions to assist shopping. Qwen began offering coupons to users on
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Alibaba launched its new Qwen3.5 model designed for independent task execution, claiming it beats major U.S. rivals on benchmarks while being 60% cheaper. But the AI chatbot's ambitious coupon giveaway campaign collapsed under customer overload, with 10 million orders in just nine hours forcing the company to halt the promotion and ask users for patience.
Alibaba Launches Qwen3.5 Model for Agentic AI Era
Alibaba unveiled its new Qwen3.5 model on Monday, positioning the AI chatbot as a major leap forward in independent task execution and cost efficiency
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. The e-commerce giant claims the model is 60% cheaper to use and eight times better at processing large workloads than its immediate predecessor, while introducing what the company calls "visual agentic capabilities"3
. Built specifically for the agentic AI era, Qwen3.5 enables developers and enterprises to move faster with the same compute resources, setting what Alibaba describes as "a new benchmark for capability per unit of inference cost"1
.
Source: ET
The model's ability to independently take actions across mobile and desktop apps marks a significant shift in how users can interact with AI for practical tasks. According to benchmarks published by Alibaba, Qwen3.5 outperforms rival U.S. models including GPT-5.2, Claude Opus 4.5, and Gemini 3 Pro on several metrics
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. These performance improvements position Alibaba to compete more aggressively in China's AI chatbot market, where it trails behind ByteDance's Doubao and DeepSeek.Coupon Giveaway Campaign Collapses Under Customer Overload
While Alibaba's technical achievements with Qwen3.5 are notable, the company's ambitious promotional strategy hit a major snag. The AI chatbot began offering coupons on Friday that allow for in-app purchases from Alibaba-owned retail platforms using chatbot prompts alone, part of a 3-billion-yuan ($433 million) plan to attract more users during China's annual Spring Festival holiday
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. The initiative represents the first phase of Alibaba's strategy to transform Qwen into a one-stop shop where users can access other apps directly and complete payments, similar to how Google integrates Gemini into apps like Maps4
.
Source: PYMNTS
The response exceeded all expectations. Alibaba reported that 10 million orders were placed within the first nine hours of the campaign
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. Faced with overwhelming user demand over the weekend, Qwen announced on its official Weibo channel that it was overloaded and asked users to give the chatbot a break. By Monday, repeated purchase prompts generated different versions of refusal messages citing user oversubscription4
. "Everyone's enthusiasm for experiencing AI shopping is too high! Currently there are too many participants in 'Qwen free order', we are working tirelessly to maintain the campaign's experience," the chatbot told users2
.The technical difficulties have marred what Alibaba calls its agentic AI strategy, though the company assured shoppers their coupons would remain valid until February 28
4
. Despite these challenges, the coupon giveaway campaign led to a seven-fold increase in active users for Qwen earlier this month1
.Related Stories
Intensifying Competition in China's AI Chatbot Market
Alibaba's moves come as competition in China's AI chatbot market reaches fever pitch. ByteDance released Doubao 2.0 on Saturday, an upgrade to its chatbot app that currently commands the largest user base in China, approaching 200 million users
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. Like Alibaba, ByteDance positioned its new model as suited to the AI agent era, signaling that independent task execution has become the new battleground for Chinese tech giants.DeepSeek, which became the first Chinese AI firm to break through globally last year, looms large over the competitive landscape. The startup is expected to release its new-generation model in the coming days, fueling anticipation among investors and industry insiders given the global tech share selloff the company triggered a year ago
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. Alibaba was one of the first to respond to DeepSeek's viral rise last year, releasing Qwen 2.5-Max, which it claimed was superior to one of DeepSeek's hit models. Notably, Alibaba did not mention DeepSeek in its Qwen3.5 announcement.The shift toward AI for shopping reflects broader consumer trends. Research shows that consumers are increasingly integrating AI into their purchasing workflows, with nearly half of power users replacing their old approaches with AI-driven alternatives
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. This pattern suggests that Alibaba's strategy of enabling in-app purchases through Qwen aligns with where consumer behavior is heading, even if the execution has encountered technical difficulties. The question now is whether Alibaba can scale its infrastructure to match user demand while maintaining the performance improvements and lower inference cost that make Qwen3.5 attractive to developers and enterprises.References
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